


intents wicked or charitable

by beanierose



Series: intention verse [1]
Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Dolly is a dog, F/F, Magical Realism, a study in isolation and tenderness, katya owns an apothecary, some of the other girls are in it too but not enough to tag, sort of slow burn but not really, trixie is a recluse, witchcraft as allegory for lesbianism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2020-10-01 23:34:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 53,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20437604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beanierose/pseuds/beanierose
Summary: a practical magic au for the spooky season. there’s a curse on any man who dares love you? love a woman, instead.





	1. one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much to [conny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/connyhascontrol), [shea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/joanneelizabeth) and [sophie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mattepinkallshades) for caring about this universe as much as i do, you are all so wonderful and i am so lucky. dolly the dog is borrowed from conny’s [daisies universe](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1085493%E2%80%9D%20rel=), which is the loveliest and most gentle thing of all time. go check it out!
> 
> and [stutter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stutter). nothing that this story is would exist without you. i can’t ever thank you enough, but i am sure gonna try every single day. i love you to the moon, and i’m so grateful to know you.
> 
> I have been lucky enough to have the most gorgeous art in the world commissioned for me, for this story, and you can check it out [here](https://asideofladies.tumblr.com/post/190817676749/a-commission-for-katiehoughtons-birthday-that)!

be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damn’d  
bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from hell  
be thy intents wicked or charitable  
**_hamlet_, act one scene four**

* * *

The wind catches the door to the mudroom and makes it fly open with such a loud crash that the whole house shivers and the dog starts barking. Trixie hustles over the threshold and whistles for Dolly, has to wrestle the door closed once both of them are inside. The sky is livid-dark and churning and the wind moans low in its throat. Dolly whines and hurries away to curl up in front of the hearth. Trixie huffs a little laugh under her breath, to soothe herself mostly. She likes living alone out here three miles from town, and she isn’t usually freaked out by solitude, but the earth feels angry this afternoon.

It’s cold out today, much warmer inside the house, and her cheeks are ruddy. Trixie toes out of her boots and untucks her fisherman’s sweater from her jeans to pull it up over her head. She pads through to the kitchen in her sock feet and her thermal layer. The whole house smells rich and good and a little tomatoey. Trixie lifts the lid of the crockpot and leans over it, lets the steam hit her face. She’s grateful to her this-morning self for fixing supper and she stirs the stew a couple of times, tastes some of the broth from the end of the spoon.

She knows just what they’d say, Kim and Bob and all the rest of them. She hears them laughing right in her ear like ghouls. Today she got up with the sun and made a stew for one with carrots and potatoes and zucchini she pulled out of the earth herself. Trixie is trying to be as self-sufficient as she can, now that she’s here. That’s the whole point.

The city became entirely too loud, the kitchen louder still. She doesn’t miss the money or the respect or the power, doesn’t miss the cries of _yes chef_ in response to every word out of her mouth. She doesn’t miss the _almost_ of her television career, the stardom everybody kept insisting was right at her fingertips if she just stretched a little further. Trixie misses her friends sometimes and absolutely nothing else about that life.

“Dolly!” she calls out, and the dog comes trotting into the kitchen. Trixie scratches her behind the ears, stoops over to kiss the slope of her snout. “Hey, beautiful girl. Are you hungry? Dinner time?”

She gets an enthusiastic wag of Dolly’s whole body in response and then the dog disappears through to the mudroom to wait. She’s a greyhound, not a farm dog at all, but Trixie has had Dolly a lot longer than she’s lived out here. One of the very first projects she did when she moved in was to create a little feeding station for Dolly, a kind of shelf to keep her bowls off of the ground and accommodate her height.

It felt dykey in a way she never really has before. Even as a chef, opening her own restaurant in a field so dominated by men, Trixie has always clung tightly to her femininity with both neatly manicured hands. Something about kneeling down on the hardwood and drilling a hole into her wall felt so butch that she caught a wicked case of church giggles and had to shut the drill off. She had stifled them against her palm for a minute and then remembered that there is no one for miles around. Instead, she had tipped her head back and let her laughter ricochet around the room.

Trixie eats dinner by herself, as she has done every night for the last four months. She sits at the dining table in the main living space because she hates eating on the couch. From here she can see outside in the mornings, all the way across the fields at the rear of her property, but now that the evenings are starting to draw in she just watches herself chew.

There’s no television at the house. She bought the place fully furnished and hasn’t really added anything, didn’t see the point when everything she needs is here already. She doesn’t miss it. There’s the radio in the kitchen and there’s Dolly for companionship and she finds that she likes it. Trixie didn’t bring any makeup with her, or her blow dryer or curling iron. She felt herself shedding layers of performative femininity with every mile she drove north, Dolly in the passenger seat beside her and four boxes tied down in the bed of the truck.

When Trixie turns on the shower she hears the water heater start groaning two floors below her. She is long since accustomed to all of the peculiar quirks of this house, all of the noises it makes. They have had to get used to each other, the house and her. She knows that the front door sticks in the frame when it’s cold out and the lock doesn’t work great so it’s best to avoid using it if possible. She knows that the third stair down creaks the loudest and that when it rains heavily the gutter outside the reading room overflows and water pours in torrents down the window. It feels like home here, more than her Los Angeles apartment ever did, or Wisconsin before that.

The water takes a while to get warm, so Trixie leaves it running while she peels out of the rest of her clothes. She unwinds her hair from its braids and inspects herself in the mirror over the sink. Most of her days are spent outside now, not being perceived by anybody, so a little jolt of unfamiliarity hits her each evening when she faces her reflection. Her cheeks are a bit fuller than she remembers, and so are her stomach and thighs. She feels good, strong. She holds her arm up across her breasts to get a sense of how tan she’s getting. The skin of her chest is still creamy smooth and pale, but her arms and face are littered with new freckles every day and the fine hairs on her forearms have been bleached white-blonde by the sun.

Trixie stands beneath the spray of the shower until the hot runs out. She washes her hair, combing the conditioner through the ends with her fingers. Her body aches in a way that is so different than how it used to, after hours on her feet in the sticky kitchen. It feels more like she’s earned it.

It’s Friday night, and Trixie has a date. She squeezes as much water as she can from the ends of her hair and gets into bed in underwear and a huge sweatshirt. When Trixie left the city she ditched her cell phone. She always felt silly having one, like she was playacting at being more successful than she really was, and she was glad to bid it farewell. Only two people in the whole world know the number for the landline here. Trixie answers on the second ring and eases down the headboard a bit. Her bare legs slide against each other beneath the sheet and the blanket and for just a moment it makes her ache with loneliness.

“Beatrice.”

“Kimberly, hello,” she says. “How are you?”

Kim launches right into a diatribe against the restaurant industry as a whole and Trixie sits with her eyes closed, only half listening. She feels it’s important to maintain some connection to the outside world, just in case the isolation makes her lose her mind and there’s nobody around to notice. Kim is so soft-spoken and gentle and kind that it’s bizarre to hear her get this heated. It reminds Trixie again why she’s doing this.

“You know I have a guest room.”

“Trixie,” Kim sighs. Trixie is holding the phone close enough to her ear that she feels the hot wash of Kim’s breath over her cheek. “I’m not quitting my job and packing up my life and disappearing into the wilderness.”

_Like you_, goes unspoken. Kim has been supportive this whole time. She doesn’t get it, doesn’t understand how Trixie could walk away from all of the opportunities unfolding before her like springtime. But she kept her sighs and eyerolls mostly to herself and she helped Trixie pack and that’s a lot more than most people did.

“I’m just saying. Offer’s open.”

Now that the sun has gone down it’s freezing in the bedroom. Gooseflesh erupts along the lengths of Trixie’s thighs. She lets Kim talk for a little while longer about Los Angeles and what all of their mutual friends are doing and how _everybody, Trixie, misses you so much_, and then she eases her gently off the call and hangs up the phone.

She has on her thickest, cosiest pair of wool socks and she skids a little bit on the hardwood in the hallway. It excites the dog and she leaps around, pawing at Trixie’s bare calves. Trixie opens the back door and sends Dolly outside to use the bathroom while she heats water on the stovetop. It’s so cold that she shifts her weight from foot to foot, hopping a little, and rubs her biceps to try and generate some heat.

It doesn’t matter how deep into the winter it gets, she hates sleeping with pants on. Trixie does a quick circuit of the lower level to check all of the doors are locked, an old habit from Los Angeles that she can’t seem to shake, and turns out all of the lamps as well. She’s done in time for the kettle to start its insistent whistling and she fills up her hot water bottle, brings it and the dog upstairs with her. Trixie sleeps with Dolly in the bed and two blankets and she is _still_ chilly for a good half hour every evening.

On her back in the textured darkness, Trixie stares at the ceiling and allows herself to yearn for just a minute. She needs a warm, kind woman to let Trixie put her freezing hands inside of her sweater. Her whole body aches with it, how much she wants. It’s not even that she misses Bob, exactly. She just misses having someone to lay next to her and kiss her until the pink tip of her nose gets warm.

There are no curtains in any of the rooms upstairs. Trixie keeps meaning to get some, to try and keep the warmth in now that summer is rolling over into fall, but she likes being able to see out into the night. The moon’s wise, round face is peering in at her right up against the glass. Since she’s been here she’s been sleeping well, sacked out on her stomach unmoving until the rooster wakes her at six. Tonight, though, she is restless and grouchy with it.

Tomorrow, for the first time, Trixie is going to drive the three miles and visit the town.

She brought a lot of supplies with her, cans and dried things like rice and pasta. The teenage son of the family in the house closest to her, a half mile down the road, gratefully accepts the ten dollar bill Trixie presses into his palm each Wednesday afternoon when he brings her milk and cheese and fruits. She has learned to bake her own bread, likes the process of working at it and how it has made her arms firm and strong. Now that the crops she planted are starting to yield, her neat rows beginning to spill over in abundance, she feels much more self-sufficient.

There are things that she needs that she can’t put off for much longer. Things she is not comfortable asking a fifteen year old boy to buy for her. And she supposes she ought to show her face to the townsfolk, now that she’s been lurking on the outskirts for almost half a year like a cryptid.

Trixie comes awake into the crisp, clear morning and can immediately see frost on the windowpane. She pulls on jeans in the bedroom and her duck boots in the mudroom and heads outside to let the chickens out. The coop structure has a kind of sliding door with a long handle that Trixie can pull from the outside and the girls all come clattering down the little ramp.

She opens the door of the pen to let them roam around the yard for a while. Dolly darts back and forth, her graceful body low to the ground and her tail in the air. She’s a city dog, and a sighthound with a high prey drive, but Trixie doesn’t need to worry. She’s patient with the girls, and they are obsessed with her.

“Good morning, Patsy-girl,” Trixie says when her favourite Rhode Island Red pecks insistently at her boot clad foot. She scoops the chicken up and cradles her to her chest, supports both of her feet in the palm of one hand so she’ll stop flapping and settle down. “Hi, princess. Hi pretty lady.”

Her voice is so soft and melty when she talks to any of the animals. She hears it in herself and can’t seem to do anything about it. Trixie has to set the chicken down because the others are squawking and hopping about her ankles, distressed that their sister is getting all of the attention. She squats down instead and has to put four fingertips to the ground to steady herself when Loretta and Shania immediately hop up onto her thighs. Trixie is long past being precious about keeping her hands clean. She’s always kept her nails short anyway, and she’s gotten used to scrubbing the dirt out from beneath them before dinner each night.

The cow shed is her next stop. There are no actual cows in there, as much as she would like to have them, but the previous owner of the property had thrown into the sale of the house a pair of cantankerous, curmudgeonly goats. They spend their nights tucked up warm amongst the hay and, she’s pretty sure, plotting ever more convoluted ways to make Trixie’s life difficult.

“Good morning Cash, Guthrie,” Trixie says when she opens the door and gets a stony stare from one and a disgruntled bleat from the other. They are the only men in a half mile radius, so of course they are ornery and smell disgusting and fight constantly with anything nearby, including each other.

Trixie opens the gate to let them out into the paddock. She likes how her mornings look, the routine of going around feeding all of the animals and making sure they have water and wishing them all a happy start to their day. She’s always been a country girl; nine years in Los Angeles couldn’t beat that out of her. Sometimes when she wakes in the morning to Garth’s insistent crowing she feels as if she’s in her thirteen year old body again, too big for her skin and stretching taller and thicker every day.

Once everybody is fed, including herself, Trixie tries to become a little more presentable. First impressions matter: it’s why she always vetted her front-of-house staff so thoroughly and why she was so obsessively detail-oriented when designing the façade of her restaurants. She’s going to be meeting a whole lot of new people today. She’d rather they didn’t clock that she’s a loner and a lesbian before she even gets a chance to open her mouth.

The truck engine rolls over twice before she gets it to start and Trixie mutters something under her breath that might be an incantation. While she drives into town she has a very difficult time not looking at herself in the rearview mirror. For the first time she wishes she’d brought a little makeup with her, even just some mascara and lipstick. Her face is pink and weathered and her hair had refused to cooperate so she’s wound it into her usual two braids and jammed a beanie over the top to at least try to look intentional.

Trixie parallel parks on the street and hops down from the cab of the truck. The step is muddy, but her boots are caked with crud anyway so it hardly matters. There are kids playing further up the street and all five of them stop what they’re doing and turn as one to look at her. It’s creepy, a bit _Children of the Corn_, and a shiver rattles up Trixie’s spine. She wraps her men’s cord jacket tighter around herself and arranges her scarf at her neck. The cold is a copper taste in her throat and the skin of her face feels pulled taut, pink-raw.

The whole town is serene and lovely. Trixie walks slowly down the main street, hands stuffed low into the pockets of her coat because she forgot to bring gloves with her. It’s big enough that it makes her feel delicate and tiny and precious, all hunkered down inside of it.

Each building has a different coloured siding and all of the storefronts are neatly kept and welcoming. As Trixie walks she hears the susurration of the water against the shores of the cove and the crunch of her own footsteps. It’s not so quiet here in town as it is back at the house, but above the shouts of the children playing and the occasional car rumbling by it’s still peaceful.

There’s a pharmacy at the end of the street, close to the dock, and Trixie ducks inside. A bell over the door signals her arrival and the old man behind the register looks up from the newspaper and smiles at her. He’s missing one of his front teeth. Trixie gives him a tiny nod of her head and waves away his offer to help find what she needs. It’s a much faster experience than back in Los Angeles because there is only one choice of shampoo, one soap, one brand of analgesic.

She sets everything down on the counter. The man begins scanning everything, not watching what he’s doing because his eyes are raking up and down Trixie. She’s wearing a lot of layers today so it’s not like he’s getting an eyeful, but it still makes the skin at the back of her neck prickle.

“Well hey there, little lady. You must be new in town. I’m Tom.” He gets done ringing everything up but makes no move to bag it or ask her for her money.

Trixie pulls her wallet free from the back of her jeans, has to wrestle with it a bit because it gets caught on the corner of the pocket. She gives Tom her well-worn, _please don’t try to have a conversation with me right now_ smile. Very carefully does not offer him her name back.

“I live a few miles outside of town. Out on Fort Casey Road.”

“Well, everybody here’s real friendly. Can’t get steered too wrong. Just-” He props an elbow on the counter and leans conspiratorially in. Trixie tries very hard not to physically recoil. “Just steer clear of Verbena.”

“What’s Verbena?”

Trixie hands over a couple of bills, hoping to hurry along this interaction. She’s trying not to let impatience crease the space between her eyebrows, trying not to ruin the first conversation she’s had outside of her phone calls with Kim in four months. It’s a little like her muscles have begun to atrophy; she’s working to stretch them out, but it’s uncomfortable.

Tom hands her change over to her, folds her fingers closed around the handful of coins in her palm. She finds that absolutely reprehensible. Trixie stuffs the coins hastily into the pocket of her coat and wipes her palm off against her thigh, not at all caring whether he sees. She hopes that he does.

“Verbena is the apothecary across the street.” Tom pauses, swept up in the drama of it all. He turns to look over his shoulder and Trixie follows his gaze, spots an unassuming little store almost directly opposite. When she looks back at Tom he drops his voice an octave. “The witch owns it.”

“The _what_?” Trixie snorts, and then realises that Tom is deadly serious and clamps her mouth shut. He nods fervently at her but doesn’t offer any more information. Trixie feels a sigh forming in the base of her throat and swallows it back down. She’s a lesbian. She feels an automatic, ferocious kinship with spurned women. “Right. Okay. Thanks.”

She takes her purchases in their brown paper bag and leaves the store. Outside it’s bright and crisp, and she doesn’t feel like getting back into the car just yet. She can feel Tom’s eyes on her still, through the glass frontage of the pharmacy. The violation of it is rapidly making her furious. Trixie has never liked being told what to do, especially by old men. She doesn’t allow herself to hesitate for even half a beat before she strides across the street and right on in to Verbena.

It’s a cute place. The exterior is painted all white and there are planters full of lavender either side of the door. It will be beautiful in the springtime. Inside there are bottles and jars and packages of all different sorts, so many that Trixie can’t even begin to decipher them all on her first sweep around. It smells wonderful, there’s an aromatherapy burner on one of the shelves and Trixie takes a step closer to it, bends at the waist to breathe it in a little deeper.

“Oh, _hi_. Hello. Welcome.”

The voice startles Trixie a bit and she straightens again, turns to look. All of the breath stutters in her chest. The most beautiful woman she’s ever seen — the most beautiful woman she will ever see in her life — is standing there. She’s grinning at her with a set of perfect teeth that Trixie stares at for probably a beat too long. Her white-blonde hair just skims the tops of her shoulders, heavy bangs a little long so she has to blink them out of her eyes. She’s lovely. Trixie’s palms are sweating.

“Um. Hi.”

“I’m Katya.” She offers her hand and Trixie takes it, has to maneuver the bag from the pharmacy into one arm. Katya squeezes instead of shaking and it’s so completely charming that Trixie feels her face getting hot. At least she can blame it on how much warmer it is in the store than outside.

“Trixie.”

“Trixie,” Katya repeats softly, like she’s trying it on for size. She’s still smiling so wide and Trixie finds herself grinning back, goofy Wisconsin teeth and all. “Hello, Trixie. Is there anything I can help you find today?”

The heat in her cheeks and neck is getting to be a bit much. Trixie sets her bag down on the countertop, takes off her jacket and folds it over her arm, pulls off her beanie hat as well. She definitely has hat hair and she smoothes her hands self-consciously over the top of her head.

“I. . .kind of came in here out of spite?” Trixie chews on her bottom lip, but Katya throws her head back and a pneumatic burst of laughter ricochets out of her.

“So you met Tom?”

Katya is still laughing and she reaches out to grab Trixie’s arm. Her fingers are thin and she clutches tight and everything in Trixie’s body knots up into Katya’s grip. She’s a few inches shorter than Trixie is and she smells good, like earth and springtime. When she straightens up again she slides her fingertips down the length of Trixie’s forearm as she lets go.

“I did. So no, I’m not looking for anything specific.”

“I can show you around?” Katya offers.

Trixie nods, certain that she’s completely failing at reining in her enthusiasm. Katya is the first new person she’s met in the last four months that hasn’t irritated her immediately. She lets her take her hat and coat and hang them up by the door, lets her hook her arm through Trixie’s elbow and lead her around like they’re old friends.

All of the products in the store are homemade and Katya explains the properties of each one, allows Trixie to smell things and try samples at her leisure. Katya is effusive and intelligent. Her whole face comes alight when she talks about the merits of mugwort or how close she is to perfecting her mint oatmeal shaving cream. Trixie works a lotion into her hands and lifts them both to her face to breathe deeply. Her skin feels immediately softer, and the places where her knuckles are chapped from working outside look less red and angry.

The two of them are standing with their heads bent together, studying Katya’s collection of beeswax candles. Katya’s got both hands in the back pockets of her hunter green cords and her elbows are pointy and jut out away from her. It means that every time Trixie shifts, the right one nudges into her. She likes it a lot. Katya holds up one of the candles and Trixie leans in to smell it, closes her eyes as she does.

A crash makes the windows of the storefront tremble in their frames and Trixie jerks upright, one hand flying up to land at her chest. Katya doesn’t even twitch. They turn together to see a pack of teenage boys sprinting away from the store, and a mess of egg white and yolk and shell sliding slowly down the window. Trixie is fairly sure she spots the neighbour boy, Peter, in amongst them.

Trixie makes as if to head for the door, but Katya grabs for her elbow to stop her where she stands. That’s probably best. What is she going to do, chase them? Outrage bubbles hot and insistent in her stomach and she turns to look at Katya.

“Aren’t you going to do something?”

“Sure I am.”

Katya reaches down behind the counter and comes back with a soft cloth and a spray bottle. Trixie follows her outside and stands and watches as she cleans her windows, one knee propped on the bench out front so she can lean in close. She’s shoved her sweater up past her elbows and Trixie likes the flex of the tendons in her forearms, her intricate tattoos, her delicate hands. It feels like she’s standing guard, and she finds herself glancing over her shoulders to watch for the mob coming back.

After a few minutes Katya’s arms get tired of scrubbing and she takes a break to shake them out. Trixie takes over, makes sure to meticulously spray every inch of the glass and get all of it off. The winter sun sits low in the sky and if the egg is allowed to bake onto the window it’s much harder to remove. Katya is watching her with both hands shoved into the pockets of her pants again. She has the bottoms of them rolled up so a strip of skin shows above her Dr. Martens, and Trixie is focusing very hard on not looking at her pale ankles.

When they’re done, Katya holds the door open for Trixie and flips the lock behind them both. She has a tiny little break room at the back of the store and she makes tea for the two of them, presses the cup into Trixie’s waiting hands. She doesn’t seem affected, and somehow that’s worse.

“This happen a lot?”

“A beautiful woman coming into my store? Never.” Katya grins at her over the rim of her mug, but when Trixie keeps her face carefully slack she falters. “Yeah. I’m what the kids call an outcast.”

“Oh honey, an outcast honey? I’ve been out since ninety two, honey.”

It’s a dumb joke, but it makes Katya scream and slosh a little of her tea onto her hand. It’s hot still and she sucks on the webbing between her thumb and pointer finger. Trixie looks at the red stain the lipstick leaves on her skin, looks at the pink tip of Katya’s tongue.

“That’s awful,” Katya points at her. “You’re awful, Trixie. I think the homophobes might have a point.”

They’re both laughing then, and clutching at each other. It seems like Katya’s whole body is full up with joy, and she’s looking at Trixie like she’s so pleased to find her here. Trixie hopes that Tom is squinting at them from across the street and turning slowly to stone.

She sips her tea and lets her eyes flutter closed. She doesn’t know what’s in here but it’s good, kindles a small fire in her gut that spreads outwards into all of her extremities. It could just be Katya, smiling at her and calling her beautiful.

Once they’ve both emptied their mugs, Katya takes a gift bag from a stack beside the register and wanders around the store for a little while, choosing things to fill it up with. She is careful, each choice considered. Trixie watches her, lets herself look at Katya’s tight ass in her pants when she bends over. It’s been six months since things ended with Bob, and Trixie isn’t one to have a casual fling, so the heat between her thighs is more insistent than usual.

“Here.” Katya presses the bag into Trixie’s hands. “To say thanks.”

Trixie doesn’t open the bag, doesn’t want to seem too eager. She has a sense memory of her grandmother slapping her hands and tutting at her, telling her it lacks decorum to open gifts in front of the giver. Instead, she holds it against her chest and meets Katya’s eyes. They are blue-grey, clear and abundant as a winter morning.

“Thank _you_. This is. . .this is really nice. Suspiciously nice.”

“If you start feeling feverish and vomiting it’s absolutely nothing to worry about, Tracy.” Katya studies her cuticles, feigning disinterest. Trixie notices her short nails and feels it between her thighs, takes a stuttering breath. “Just do me a favour and leave your door unlocked so I don’t have to commit breaking and entering when I come to harvest your bones. That’s a felony, you know.”

Trixie snorts and snatches her hand back from where Katya has grabbed it. “Oh sure, anything else I can do to make it easier for you?”

“Come back soon?” Katya says, and all of the teasing drops right out of her voice. She can’t seem to look Trixie in the face, studies the floor instead, and tenderness for her swells in Trixie’s chest.

“If I live through the night, I’ll come back.”

Trixie leaves then, has to. The way Katya is looking at her, like she can’t seem to choose just one thing to stare at, is making Trixie want to shove her hands inside of those tight pants and haul Katya against her.

In the car she rolls the windows down and cranks up both the heat and the volume on the CD player. She sings at the top of her lungs, elbow propped on the door and her other hand holding the wheel in two fingers. It’s freezing cold in the car and she’s shivering in her seat, barely able to grip the wheel in her numb hands, but her face is still warm.

When she moved here she was fully prepared to be the only gay person for miles and miles. It doesn’t bother her; growing up in Wisconsin desensitised her to that. But now here is Katya, beautiful and enigmatic and funny and asking to see Trixie again.

Dolly can tell that Trixie is excited and it’s infectious; she hops around while Trixie unpacks the few groceries she picked up. Trixie feeds her treats, crouched down on the kitchen floor to let the dog eat out of her palm and give her scritches behind the ears.

Trixie has always enjoyed anticipation. Bob used to complain at her, irritated by the way she would spend an hour or more gussying up before coming to bed. It makes her feel attractive and irresistible, to make herself wait. She leaves the gift bag on the dining table for the whole afternoon and refuses to even look at it while she makes dinner. After she’s cleaned up and all of the animals are down for the night, she settles cross-legged in the middle of her bed to open it.

There’s a tube of the lotion she tried, which makes her smile. She’s been smelling her hands all afternoon. There’s an aloe face cream that professes to be good for redness, and a candle that has the same scent as whatever essential oil Katya had been burning. Underneath everything else in the bag is a little notecard with the store’s name and logo on one side, and on the other Katya’s name and the store address. And at the bottom, hand written in red ink, is a phone number.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i can be found on tumblr at [katiehoughton](https://katiehoughton.tumblr.com) and on twitter at [reallybeanie](https://twitter.com/reallybeanie). i'd love to hear what you thought!


	2. two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks as always to validation station, you ladies are my sun, moon and stars and i love you dearly. and thank you stutter for looking this over for me and gently coaxing my two brain cells into actually functioning. you have my heart in your hands and there's no one i'd trust with it more.

In Los Angeles, Trixie had been a night owl. She had to be — sometimes service at the restaurant wasn’t over until nearly two in the morning — but it doesn’t come naturally to her. Since she moved here, she’s been ruled largely by a circadian rhythm that makes her start yawning almost as soon as the sun goes down. It feels like she ought to be going to bed, but she doesn’t need to yet. There’s time.

She gathers up her spoils in both hands and brings everything through to the bathroom, sets it all carefully down on the countertop. Trixie strips out of her jeans and washes her face, ties her hair back. Every day the thought of cutting it all off seems more and more appealing.

The little tub of aloe lotion has the Verbena logo on the lid and Trixie smoothes her thumb over it. It’s adorable. Everything in the whole store was adorable, including (especially) Katya. Trixie scoops a little of the lotion out of the jar and dots it over her skin, takes her time working it in with the pads of her fingers. Her face feels instantly cooler and she hums a small noise, gets an inquisitive head tilt from Dolly.

In bed, Trixie slides her sock feet back and forth beneath the sheets and tries very hard not to squirm. She’s propped the card with Katya’s telephone number against the base of the phone on her nightstand. It’s not quite eight and she feels good, sleepy and soft but not tired yet. She wants to talk to Katya, and the longer she’s been out here alone in this house the more accustomed she’s become to giving herself whatever she wants.

The line rings five times and Trixie is just beginning to resign herself to the fact that Katya might not pick up when she does, breathless. Trixie closes her eyes, can’t quite look that in the face just yet. Katya says her own name, her surname a flash of consonants and vowels all jostling for attention.

“Hi. It’s Trixie. From earlier today.”

“Trixie!” Katya sounds so thrilled, like there is nobody else in the whole world she’d rather be hearing from. “Hello. I was thinking you weren’t going to call.”

Trixie offers up the truth, knowing that it sounds like a lie. “I’ve had a busy afternoon.”

She gets a little noncommittal noise right into her ear for that. Trixie’s fingers are tight around the phone and she twirls the cord in her other hand, stretching it taut and then letting it spring back into a coil again over and over.

“Did you have any more customers?”

“One or two,” Katya says. She doesn’t sound resigned about it. Her voice has the same calm loveliness that she had the whole time Trixie was at Verbena, even when they were cleaning egg off of the windows together. “It’s the Saturday lull.”

Trixie snorts. “The Saturday lull. Right. And you have what, the Wednesday morning rush?”

“It is not up to me to dictate the whims of the good folk of this town, Tracy.”

It’s amazing how she can do that. Call them _good folk_ even though they make their distaste for her readily apparent. Trixie isn’t like that. She likes to think that she’s a good person, but she certainly isn’t nice. Not in the way that Katya is, like it doesn’t cost her anything.

“Sure.”

“People do buy things. I’m not about to go down, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

A retort about how much she would love Katya to _go down_ dies on the tip of Trixie’s tongue. She is making no pretences about how hot she thinks Katya is, not even to her own self, but after everything with Bob she feels raw and exposed as a split fig. It’s not a good idea to get into something now.

“Thank you again. For the stuff.” It seems like a safe thing to say. Trixie lets herself slip down against the pillows a bit more until she’s lying nearly flat. She turns onto her side and brings her knees up so that the parenthetical of her body is angled towards the telephone on the nightstand.

Katya chuckles low in her throat and Trixie has to press her thighs together. “Mama, you are welcome to help yourself to my stuff any time.”

Her face is getting hot again. Trixie turns out the light beside the bed and plunges the room into darkness. It’s overcast tonight and the moon is like a streetlamp burning through the mist.

“Do you live close to town?” Trixie asks. _Do you see this same moon?_

There are noises in the background like stirring. It seems a little late for dinner, but Trixie likes the thought of Katya standing at the stove with her sweater pushed up past her elbows again, or maybe stripped off over her head so that her hair is even funkier and more staticky.

“I sure do. I’m out on Long Point. I can see the store across the cove.”

Trixie indulges herself in a long moment of imagining Katya standing on the cliff’s edge, the wind whipping her hair and skirt out sideways from her body. She thinks of her keeping watch for the incandescent lick of fire into the night’s dark mouth. It’s maudlin and not at all appropriate for what she knows of Katya so far, but she has found herself drawn to melancholy lately.

They chat for a little while longer. When Trixie hangs up the phone she feels the grip of Katya’s hands in her chest, tugging her open to peer inside. And she finds that she learned almost nothing about Katya. She agreed to come back to the store on Monday without stopping to consider what that might mean.

When she rolls over Dolly is watching her with her long snout resting on both paws. She has a wise face; that was the reason Trixie was drawn to her at the shelter, the reason she brought her home the very next day. Bob never liked her all that much, used to say that it freaked her out that Dolly looks like she understands exactly how hard it is to be a person. Trixie kisses the velvet fur between the dog’s eyes and gets a lick to the chin in response. The candle Katya gave her is on the nightstand and it makes her bedroom smell like the store.

In the morning she doesn’t remember falling asleep and her body aches from disuse. She’s still on her stomach and she groans, rolls over onto her back. It’s like she hasn’t moved an inch all night and neither has Dolly; the spots where she and the dog have been lying are an archipelago of warm patches in the cool sheets. Trixie uses the bathroom and washes her hands, lifts her eyes to see herself in the mirror over the sink.

For the first time since she moved here, all of the redness is gone from her skin. Her face is smooth and pale, dotted with freckles across the bridge of her nose. She makes a little mental note to say thank you to Katya again. She looks five years younger, and her hands are much softer too.

All of Sunday she is jittery and impatient. It makes her more curt with the animals than she likes. She’s snippish with Cash and Guthrie when she has to coax them down from the bed of the truck again. The previous owners of the house warned her that they — like all goats — enjoy being on top of the highest thing in their immediate surroundings. It isn’t the first time they’ve managed to get up onto Trixie’s car. She spots Cash with his two front hooves up on the roof of the cab and she hurries outside to pull him down, has to herd the both of them back into their pen.

Dolly can sense the nervous energy rolling off of Trixie in waves. She follows her around all day and when Trixie settles in for the evening with a book Dolly climbs right into her lap on the couch. She props her glasses up on top of her head and leans down to fuss over the dog.

“Sorry, baby. Mama’s a little strung out today, huh?”

No one is here, so Trixie lets the dog lick her face, and she peppers kisses all over her snout and sniffs her paws and scratches her belly until her legs kick. Trixie puts them both to bed and lies for a long time in a wonderfully tender ecstasy of anticipation. She gets to see Katya tomorrow. After only two conversations, she is looking forward to it so much.

Maybe she’s projecting some things. She has been achingly lonely these last few weeks, now that the novelty of her solitude is beginning to wear off. Katya’s has been the first kind face that she’s seen in months. When she first saw her, when their eyes met, some small part of her came awake. She’s felt an instant connection with a couple of people in her life before, like Kim, but never quite like this.

She is to be at the store for one o’clock in the afternoon, so that she can spend Katya’s lunch hour with her, and she spends the entire morning in a paroxysm of self-doubt. She wears a pair of russet jodhpurs because they have a high waist and she likes the way it makes the fabric pull taut around the curve of her ass. For a while she wanders around the bedroom in just her bra and then settles on a long sleeved tee in her favourite soft pink. She is preening for Katya, absolutely she is, but she’s doing her best not to look like it.

For the drive, Trixie keeps the windows rolled all the way up. She would like to whoop and holler out of them, because she’s driving into town to see a pretty girl who likes her and she feels sixteen and like she has pulled off the impossible. It’s not worth the risk to her hair, which she is wearing down in loose curls that are made static by her scarf. Trixie parks right outside of Verbena this time, in the spot Katya assured her would be open.

Katya is waiting at the counter and when she sees Trixie she hops up and down a couple of times like a sparrow and waves. Trixie jumps down from the cab of the truck without using the step and enjoys the little zap of awareness that shoots up through her thighs and into her pelvis when both of her feet hit the hard ground.

“Hi, good morning, good afternoon, hello,” Katya says when Trixie comes inside. She reaches around Trixie to flip the sign hanging on the door from open to closed, and flip the lock as well. The solid thunk of the snib sliding home makes Trixie’s stomach roll over. “Are you hungry? I’m hungry. I’m _starving_.”

“I’m always hungry.” Trixie unwinds her scarf and puts it into Katya’s waiting hands.

It gets hung carefully on the coat stand and then Katya reaches for her hand to bring Trixie into the tiny break room with her. Everywhere their skin touches is crackling. Trixie wishes she could see Katya interacting with somebody else, so that she could know whether this is just a Katya thing or whether it’s because she wants to be touching Trixie, specifically.

Katya has sandwiches for them both and she opens a bag of chips and peels it right down the middle so she can lay it out flat between them. The table back here is tiny and there’s only one chair, which Katya insisted that Trixie have. She’s sitting on an overturned crate and it puts her much lower down so that her chin is almost resting on the tabletop.

Their knees keep bumping together in the tight space. Katya talks with her mouth full and takes much longer than Trixie to be finished eating. Once she is she gathers up all of their trash and puts it in the garbage can, turns back around to look at Trixie with her hands on her hips.

“Oh!” Her face cracks apart around a grin and she disappears into the store, apparently assuming that Trixie will follow. Which she does, of course. Katya is rummaging in her enormous, hideous purse and she pulls a small container out and crows in triumph. “Here. For when your back is hurting.”

On the phone on Saturday night, Trixie had rolled over awkwardly and made a small, accidental noise of discontent. It had been humiliating and her cheeks had burned crimson as Katya had babied her over the line, asking her to say where it hurts the most.

“How much?” Trixie pulls her wallet out and thumbs through the handful of bills inside. There’s silence, and when she looks up again Katya is chewing on her bottom lip and getting red all over her teeth.

“It doesn’t have a price. I don’t sell it. I, uh. . .made it specially. For you.”

Trixie sucks in a breath and feels her cheeks hollowing out around it. People don’t do these sorts of things. Not for her. She is curmudgeonly so much of the time, knows that she can be ornery. Often in the kitchen she would find herself shouting at her sous-chef and the busboys and anybody who came near her. Bob was the only one ever brave enough to shout right back. That was a big part of the reason why Trixie let Bob back her up against the prep counter after close and unbutton each of the six buttons of her whites one at a time like shucking oysters.

“Please let me pay you.”

Katya wrinkles her nose. “I can’t. If you pay me then it becomes a crime.”

“Shut up!” Trixie squawks, and shoves on Katya’s shoulder. She’s laughing too, pleased with herself, and she pushes the little tub into Trixie’s hands. “It’s not a crime, I never solicited you.”

“Pour half a cup into the stream of the water when you’re drawing your bath, and soak for at least twenty minutes,” Katya says sternly. She pokes her finger into Trixie’s chest and Trixie’s whole self unravels around that one point of contact.

Trixie holds the container in both hands and smooths her thumb over the logo on the lid. “I’m still not convinced you’re not trying to kill me.”

“I like my victims to present a challenge. You’re way too easy. Just taking whatever I give you.”

“I never professed not to be a bottom,” Trixie shrugs.

It makes Katya choke out a delighted guffaw and she shakes both fists in the air. She is so cute that Trixie hardly knows what to do with herself. They never made plans past lunch, but she wants to stay here. She’s going to stay here, going to make Katya kick her out.

There’s a little stool behind the register and Trixie settles herself on it, prim and proper and legs crossed at the knee. Katya busies herself reorganising the shelves and sweeping the floor, but she keeps darting these little glances at Trixie and doesn’t seem to care at all that Trixie catches her at it each time.

The music is turned way up and everything is weird and a lot of it is in a language Trixie assumes to be Russian. Katya sings along sometimes, loud and off-key but so enthusiastic that Trixie wishes she knew the words too and could join in. Nobody comes in to the store all afternoon. Plenty of people walk by, and at one point a little kid presses their face up against the window with their tongue out. Trixie thinks of the egg residue on the glass and huffs a little laugh of vindication on Katya’s behalf.

It gets dark right as Katya is closing the store. All afternoon they’ve been talking and laughing, and Trixie has even made herself useful and run the duster along the shelves that are too high for Katya to reach easily. She stretched up on tiptoe to do it even though there really wasn’t any need for that, and she felt Katya’s gaze on her the entire time.

“I absolutely understand if the answer is no, but would you like to come have dinner with me?” Katya is chewing anxiously on her bottom lip again, and Trixie can’t fathom how her lipstick ever makes it through the day.

She says yes immediately, without thinking, and then has to backpedal. “Or, well. I _would_ like to. But I have to go home.”

“The animals.” Katya snaps her fingers, leaves her fist hovering in the air for a long moment. “Right. Damn.”

The bones of Trixie’s butt are numb when she hops down from her stool. It’s making her hyper aware of everything between her knees and her waist. She smoothes her palms down the lengths of her thighs to iron out any creases. Dolly will be aching to go out and use the bathroom by now, and the whole cacophonous lot of them are going to want to be fed.

“You could come home with me? I can feed you.”

“You’re gonna feed me?” Katya rakes her eyes up and down Trixie’s frame. She is suddenly so aware of all the places that she isn’t wiry and slender, all of the curves of her that spill out all over. Katya’s mouth isn’t smiling but her eyes are.

Trixie shrieks and shoves on Katya’s shoulder. “You know I cook, you dumb whore. I told you I’m a chef.”

“You told me you ran away from being a chef,” Katya says flatly.

Trixie manages a strangled noise of affront, but Katya is already swanning away from her. She ducks into the break room for her coat and hat and comes back out struggling her way into them. Her elbow cracks against the doorframe so loudly that Trixie feels it in the roots of her teeth, but Katya doesn’t even react. She takes Trixie’s scarf from where it’s hanging on the coat stand and loops it around her neck, holding on to both of the ends.

Their faces are so close together that Trixie can smell Katya’s gum. She lets her eyes flutter slowly closed, waiting for Katya to use her grip on the two ends of the scarf to tug Trixie in and kiss her. Her heart is a thing with feathers flitting up from her chest into her throat.

Katya doesn’t do it. Instead, she lets go of the scarf completely and takes a step back from Trixie, jams both hands down into the pockets of her coat. Her shoulders are rounded, up in defence.

They don’t talk much on the drive to the house. Katya keeps fiddling with all of the knobs on the dash, flicking through the radio stations without actually pausing to hear what any of them are playing. She’s pulled her feet up to sit cross-legged, which Trixie finds peculiar to do in a car, but she enjoys the crest of Katya’s knee in her periphery whenever she turns to check her blind spots.

Trixie jogs up the steps with her keys in her fist and unlocks the back door, lets Dolly come barrelling out. The dog disappears off around the side of the house, because she hates to be watched while she pees, which Trixie can relate to. She dumps her coat and scarf inside on the bench and comes back out to see Katya down on her knees in the earth.

“Trixie, this is amazing. You live here?”

“Shh! No. Don’t let them hear you.” She turns to look over her shoulder, up at the second floor windows. “They haven’t caught me yet. I think they think I’m a cryptid.”

When she turns back around Katya’s cheeks are pink with barely-suppressed amusement. She’s got her fingers buried in the dirt of Trixie’s vegetable beds and she sifts through it, brings a handful up to her face to smell. Trixie hovers awkwardly next to her, unenthusiastic about getting down on the ground but not wanting to move away from Katya, either.

“What are you growing?”

“Aside from _annoyed_?” Trixie lifts both eyebrows. “Carrots, zucchini. I’d love parsnips but they’re difficult.”

Katya brings her hands out of the earth and brushes them together, but doesn’t seem too bothered by the soil beneath her fingernails and up past her wrists like tide marks. “Everything’s pretty phallic, mama. You compensating for something?”

“Oh, Katya, my dick is so small,” Trixie sighs, and presses the back of her hand to her forehead like she’s standing at a dock watching a ship draw out of port and she could begin wailing at any moment.

It earns her the exact screaming, staccato burst of laughter from Katya that she’d been hoping for. She gets to her feet and shakes herself off a bit but leaves the dirt staining her bare knees. She’s wearing a dress today that has sleeves but leaves most of her toned, pale legs on show. All day, Trixie has found herself looking, over and over. Has found herself unable to stop.

Inside, Trixie has to turn on the faucet for Katya so she doesn’t get dirt on it. They wash their hands side by side at the kitchen sink, jostling with each other for space beneath the stream of the water. Katya shucked her ankle boots at the door (they are black with stars and moons embroidered all over them in gold thread and Trixie is obsessed) and she’s padding around the kitchen in her red wool socks now, suddenly another inch or so shorter than Trixie.

She insists on making herself useful. Trixie sets her to work chopping all of the vegetables. She’s made nervous by Katya’s lax attitude towards the knife, the way she gesticulates wildly with it while she talks. Dolly hovers around their feet hoping for scraps and Katya keeps stopping to scratch her behind the ears. It’s definitely a hygiene violation, and Trixie keeps having to remind herself that this is not a professional kitchen. This is her home, and Katya is in it.

“About your tiny dick,” Katya gestures out of the window with the knife. Trixie grunts and takes it from her, dumps it into the sink to wash later. “I have a fertilizer mix that I use. I could bring some over for you? Well, you’d have to come and get it. I don’t drive.”

“You want to fertilise my garden?” Trixie keeps her voice carefully flat, even though her hips are twitching and she’s curling her toes inside of her too-big socks.

Katya either misses the innuendo entirely, or is gracious enough not to acknowledge how Trixie is fumbling with it in both hands. “Yeah! I don’t grow veggies, mostly just houseplants, but I think it’ll still be good.”

“Okay. Yeah. That’d be great.”

“Did you hear that, _milaya devushka_?” Katya is down on her knees on the kitchen floor with Dolly’s head captured between both hands. The dog’s entire body is wagging, thrilled with the attention from a new person. “Your mommy is going to let me fertilise her.”

Okay. Well. She didn’t miss the innuendo, then.

Trixie runs the water in the sink again, her back to Katya, and holds her wrists beneath the cold stream for a moment. Just to stop the insistent pulse of blood in her ears and hands and thighs. When she shuts it off Katya is right beside her, and she’s smiling.

“Do you need help?”

“Not with dinner.”

That makes Katya snort and she gives Trixie a little space, stands with her arms folded neatly in front of her. The picture of obedience, but Trixie can’t stop watching how she’s working her fingers, curling and flexing them against her bicep.

“How can I help you, Tracy?”

She swallows down the knot of electric want in her throat. “Do you wanna feed the chickens?”

Katya lets out an actual yell of delight at the suggestion. She does as she’s told, disappearing off into the mudroom. Trixie calls out instructions and hears Katya opening cabinets, scooping mix into the feeder. She holds it out in the doorway for Trixie to look at and confirm it’s the correct amount, and then the back door opens. Trixie can see her from the kitchen window. The galoshes she’s borrowing from Trixie are a bit too big and she clomps her way around the yard.

The chickens have a bad habit of flapping up into the face of whoever has the misfortune of setting the feeder down among them. Usually Trixie lets the dog outside while she does this so Dolly can herd them, keep them back at least a bit. Katya seems entirely unbothered, even when Faith hops up onto her bent thigh and sticks her beak directly into Katya’s ear.

She turns to see Trixie at the window and grins like a little kid, waves energetically at her. Once dinner is ready Trixie has to go to the back door and call out to her to let her know. She comes inside more dishevelled than before, her hair sticking up in places because Reba likes to pull on it. Trixie hip checks Katya over towards the sink to wash her hands again, leaves her there while she sets two places at the table.

Trixie lights a few candles and doesn’t turn on the overhead lamp, lets the light from the kitchen do most of the work. Outside it is just beginning to rain and Trixie cracks open a couple of the windows in the dining nook so that they’ll be able to hear it. Katya settles across from Trixie at the table and rests her hands either side of her bowl to warm them. Her fingers are red, knuckles cracked and raw like she’s scrubbed too hard trying to get all of the dirt off. She has a tiny streak of it on her cheekbone, but Trixie is not about to point that out to her.

Now that they’re here, eating dinner together with Dolly circling the table, Trixie is beginning to realise that they are sharing a meal for the second time today. It should freak her out, but she thinks Katya is endlessly interesting. Having someone here in the house with her for the very first time is throwing a lot of things into sharp relief. She’s lonely, and she’s pretty certain that Katya is too. There’s nothing wrong with nurturing their friendship, even if Trixie is probably going to spend the rest of eternity marvelling at how hot Katya is whenever she looks at her.

Conversation flows easily between them. Trixie finds herself interrupting a lot, because she is so excited to talk to Katya. And anyway, if she doesn’t derail Katya’s train of thought every once in a while they get so far away from their original topic that Trixie’s anecdotes are no longer relevant.

After dinner they settle on the little couch, and Trixie winds up with the dog sprawled across her lap. A fire is burning in the grate and Katya rolls up the sleeves of her dress. Two days ago, when they’d been cleaning, Trixie had seen the tattoos that decorate Katya’s forearms and she’d gotten very distracted wondering what might be beneath her sweater. They’re harder to see in the lamplight, but she touches her fingers to three tiny circular ones in the crook of Katya’s elbow.

“They’re sigils.” Katya points to each one in turn. “Grounding. Protection. Emotional healing.”

Trixie won’t ask, can’t ask, what it is that Katya might need to heal from. It feels like a terrible invasion of her privacy. The night has drawn thick in around them, the rain coming down much harder now. Trixie is afraid to speak above a whisper, feels like it might spook Katya if she raises her voice.

“I thought the point of being a lesbian is that you don’t need protection,” she says.

Katya is sitting with her back against the arm rest and her knees bent, and she kicks her sock feet out towards Trixie in horror. “Wow. The state of public education in Wisconsin is woefully lacking, huh.”

“You think I went to _school_?”

The way that joy travels through Katya’s entire body whenever Trixie makes her laugh is so captivating. She’s much quieter than usual, in deference to the intimacy of the evening, but she still wriggles around on the couch like Trixie’s got a hook through her guts.

When Trixie has to hide a yawn in her palm for the fourth time, Katya takes that as her cue. She gets to her feet and folds her body in half, palms flat on the ground and torso pressed against her thighs. She groans and rocks her hips side to side and Trixie looks away, stares right past her and out into the night.

At the car, like she did earlier today outside the store, Katya performs some kind of strange ritual. She circles the truck slowly, muttering something under her breath. She touches each of the wheels, skims her fingertips along the edges of the side panels as she walks around. Clearly, Katya is uncomfortable around vehicles. Trixie is waiting on the porch to shelter from the rain and trying not to watch her. It feels voyeuristic when she’s so vulnerable, but she can’t help it.

“Oh God, not you too,” she calls out.

It startles Katya and she whips around to face her, uses two hands to push her wet bangs back from her forehead. “What?”

“Cash and Guthrie are already obsessed with the truck. I don’t need you at it as well. Please don’t climb onto the roof.”

“Sorry. It’s an old habit. Just- I get nervous around cars.”

Trixie closes the distance between them and opens the passenger door for Katya, gives her an elbow to help boost her up into the seat. Before she closes the door, Trixie pats Katya’s knee in something approximating comfort.

“You don’t have to be sorry. Are you good?”

“Good,” Katya nods.

For the whole drive, she sits with her face pressed to the window and continues her muttering. Trixie leaves her to it, gets the sense that she really doesn’t want to have a conversation right now. And yes, Bob, she is capable of shutting up when she needs to. She gets to go all the way to Katya’s house, gets to see it for the first time.

It is enormous and white and pearly in the darkness, jutting out from the surrounding greenery. Out here there aren’t any streetlights and the trees are patches of richer, more textured darkness. Trixie sits in the idling truck and watches Katya climb the porch steps two at a time and slip inside the house with a last wave in Trixie’s direction. Trixie flashes the headlights in response. She sits there for longer than she probably should, watching lights come on and imagining the way Katya moves through the house, the routine of her evening.

Trixie lets her head drop forward until it hits the top edge of the steering wheel. She sees now, why the whole town thinks that Katya is a witch. She lives out here in this big house on the outskirts of town, and she wears whatever she pleases. Earlier today Trixie noticed Katya’s earrings, two tiny doll hands, and elected not to question that. She is eccentric and unabashed about it. And she’s a lesbian. Or into women at the very least.

She feels enormously, furiously protective over her. Katya has shown her more kindness in the last three days than some of the people that have been in her life for three years. It’s not a crush — Trixie is not that careless with her heart — she’s just interested. Katya is compelling and funny and smart and Trixie has been craving intellectual conversation beyond her weekly phone dates with Kim.

There’s nothing wrong with pursuing a friendship. And anyway, Katya could have kissed her in the store today and she did nothing. Since she came out nearly ten years ago, Trixie has had to field questions from well-meaning but deeply ignorant straight friends. She finds it childish and loathsome when people assume that because two women are lesbians, they must automatically want to fuck one another.

Trixie drives home in silence with an ache in her thighs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading, i'd love to hear what you thought!


	3. three.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't do this without my ladies, and personally I feel like every writer should have a squad of supportive and gentle wlw in their corner. I love you guys, and I can't thank you enough.

When Trixie gets home, the house is empty and still in a way it hasn’t felt the entire time she’s lived here. Their dishes are drying beside the sink. Katya insisted on cleaning them, since Trixie cooked. She had sat on the countertop to watch, making sure Katya didn’t break anything and drumming her heels against the cabinet below.

Trixie likes to see them there, two bowls and two sets of flatware and two glasses. She’s grown so used to only seeing one of each thing and a little flurry of tenderness rushes through her to see everything paired up now. She moves to put everything back in the cabinets, and as she does she notices a small black stone on the windowsill over the sink.

It is definitely not something that belongs to her. Katya must have left it here. Trixie picks it up and closes her fingers around it, feels its cool smooth weight in her palm. The previous occupants of this house left hundreds and hundreds of books here, an entire reading room with a window seat that Trixie doesn’t use nearly as much as she should. She pads through with the little stone and kneels down, hunts through the dusty volumes until she finds what she’s looking for.

There’s a whole book on crystals and their healing properties. Trixie sets the stone down so she can look at it properly and skims through the pages. It’s black tourmaline, she figures out eventually. Her neck hurts from craning over the book and she relocates to the window seat, curls up with her legs beneath herself to learn what it means.

According to the book, black tourmaline is the premier talisman of protection available in the modern world. Trixie turns it over and over in her hands, admiring how smooth it is. Trying very hard not to think about its implications. Katya has left this here, someplace she knew Trixie wouldn’t miss it. For protection.

That alarms her.

She carries it around with her for the rest of her evening, sets it on the side of the bathtub while she showers. In bed, she looks at it on the nightstand for a long time. When she can’t stand it any longer, Trixie closes her eyes and hides her face against the pillow. Her breathing is tremulous enough that Dolly grows concerned and moves closer, lays her long head on Trixie’s shoulder.

It’s been only three days. Three days is way too soon to be giving someone a talisman for protection. There’s something between Katya and her, Trixie can’t deny that, but this is too much. She sleeps restlessly, fitfully, has to get up a couple of times in the night and pad down to the kitchen for a glass of water. At three in the morning, Trixie goes out of the back door and stands in the yard in her sock feet. Her moon shadow stretches out before her on the grass. The whole world is silent and still, and Trixie stands for a long time until the earth starts to rotate and makes her dizzy.

Her phone rings in the middle of the afternoon on Tuesday. She’s out in the cow shed, double checking that the hole in the corrugated siding is secure and Cash isn’t going to be able to escape through it again. Trixie gets to the phone just in time and props her shoulder against the wall in the kitchen.

“Hello?”

“Trixie. Hi.”

It’s Katya, of course. Now there are three people in the world who have this number. Kim only calls on Friday nights, and Trixie really doubts that Bob is going to call at all, so she should have known before she picked up. It would have been nice to steel herself.

“Hi.” She doesn’t say anything else, not sure what she can say that won’t be immediately accusatory. The stone is heavy in the pocket of her overalls and she tucks her hand down inside, rubs her thumb back and forth across the surface the way she is already in the habit of doing.

There’s a long pause, but she hears Katya breathing right in her ear. Still there. And then a tiny noise like she’s clearing her throat. “How is the menagerie treating you today, you radiant earth mother?”

“You can’t just- just leave things here!” The outburst surprises both of them. She hears Katya suck in a startled breath and she shifts her weight from foot to foot, agitated by her own awkwardness. “Katya. We’ve known each other for three days. You can’t be leaving me things like this. Stop feeding the stereotype.”

“I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Trixie sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. She hates phone calls, wishes Katya were here in the kitchen with her so she could look at her soft hair and her red mouth and the nervous way she picks at her cuticles.

“It didn’t upset me.” It definitely did. “It’s just that. . .you don’t even know me.”

“I’d like to, though, Trixie. And it doesn’t mean anything like _that_.” Katya pauses, but Trixie is not about to fill the silence for her. She’d like very much to know what it does mean, then. “I don’t get to do this very often. Make a friend. Show somebody kindness. That’s all it was. It wasn’t supposed to freak you out.”

The cord stretches just long enough that Trixie can sink down to sit on the kitchen floor and still keep the phone pressed to her ear. She lets her head thud back against the wall, which Katya definitely hears. In her haste to answer the call she left the back door open, and the chickens are all poking their inquisitive brown heads inside now. Reba is the first to come inside and the others all follow, crowding and jostling together to get through the doorframe.

Trixie chews on the inside of her cheek. Now that she’s down here on the linoleum she feels small and ashamed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to freak out. Or to yell at you.”

“That’s okay,” Katya says easily. “I can um, take it back? If you don’t want it.”

“No!” Trixie blurts out, again. She closes her eyes, because she can see herself reflected in the glass door of the stove, and she doesn’t want to look at this ridiculous, strung-out person anymore. “I want it. I like it.”

Katya’s laughing at her, just a little bit. “Alright then. You keep it.”

“You can’t _take back a gift_, Katya. Are you trying to invite bad luck or something?”

There’s no laugh on the other end of the line. There’s no sound at all, like Katya is holding the phone away from her ear. When she comes back she sounds too jovial, not at all like herself. She’s laughing it off, agreeing with Trixie, and it’s making gooseflesh rise all along the backs of Trixie’s arms and up her neck. When Katya hangs up — after insisting that Trixie come to dinner at her house later in the week — Trixie stays on the kitchen floor for a long time, just looking at the phone in her hand.

She feels weird for the rest of the day, disoriented, and she trips over Dolly more than once while she’s making dinner. The dog grumbles at her, keeps nudging her solemn head into Trixie’s thigh. Trixie has the tourmaline in her pocket and she likes that she can feel it there, how it tugs the leg of her overalls down a little on the left side.

Being so out of sorts is making her petulant and a little embarrassed. Not for the first time, she is glad to have so much solitude. She takes Dolly for a walk after dinner and breaks sticks beneath her boots in the woods, working off her snit. The leaves are beginning to drop now and the ground is mulchy underfoot. Everything is damp and earthy smelling and Trixie breathes deeply through her nose, tries to let go of her stress with each slow exhale.

It takes her a little while to realise it, but she misses Katya. When it hits her she stumbles and has to catch herself against a tree, scratches her palm on a sharp branch. There is no reason she should be missing somebody she’s only known for four days. Yes, when she first met Katya her heart grew wings and soared around the apothecary, but Trixie is so used to caging it. She is wary, and careful, and it makes her nervous to need people.

If she were braver, she would tell Katya that. Instead she lies on her back on top of her sheets and lets the phone ring out on the nightstand, listens to the answering machine pick up the call downstairs. Katya says she wasn’t calling for any particular reason, just wanted to chat, but there’s a thin quality to her voice that says she knows Trixie is avoiding her. It makes Trixie’s stomach hurt.

It rains all night. On Wednesday morning, when she lets the hens out, they squawk at her in indignation. Faith hates the mud so much that she refuses to come down the ramp at all. The rest of them get over themselves quickly enough, once they realise that the freshly churned earth has worms in abundance for them to pull squirming from the ground.

Something that might be peace has begun to germinate low down in Trixie’s stomach. She is very carefully not looking at it. Tomorrow night she’s going to have dinner at Katya’s house, and she is hoping that by then it will have sprouted into a little green shoot. For now, she is going about her day and determinedly not thinking about Katya, not touching her thumb to the tourmaline she is still carrying in her pocket.

She has successfully avoided thinking about Katya for almost two hours when she sees Peter, the neighbour boy, rounding the back of the house. He stops by every week on his way into town, to collect the list of things that Trixie needs. She’s ready for it, has been practicing all morning what she’s going to say to him. The knock on the back door makes Dolly bark. Usually Trixie shuts her away in the kitchen, because Peter is freaked out by her, but today she opens the door and lets her come barrelling right out.

Peter stumbles down the two steps in surprise and brings both hands up. It reminds Trixie that she’s dealing with a child. She has to be the mature one here, as much as she wants to be spiteful and cruel. Trixie folds her arms and leans her hip against the doorframe, glad at least that there’s a height discrepancy and she can look down her nose at him.

“Peter. Good afternoon. I won’t be needing your services anymore.”

His face scrunches up in irritation. “Why not?”

“I think you know why not.”

Something small and vindictive and unpleasant comes to life in her stomach as Trixie watches his cheeks get warm. He would have seen her in Verbena with Katya, when he and his friends vandalised the store. And even if he hadn’t, Trixie knows towns like this one. Everybody that lives here has certainly heard by now that she and Katya have spent some time together. That she has shown kindness to Katya, and received kindness from her right back more liberally than she knows what to do with.

“That wasn’t my idea.” Indignation makes him seem five years younger than he is. His hands are balled into fists, shoulders up around his ears. For half a second, Trixie feels for him, and then remembers the calm stoicism with which Katya had handled the situation.

“It doesn’t much matter whose idea it was.” Trixie lifts her eyebrows. He does at least have the decency to look ashamed. “The fact is, you were there. And I don’t want to be seen as condoning that behaviour. Does that make sense to you?”

“Miss Mattel, I-”

Trixie holds out a hand to cut him off. She is suddenly so exhausted. Dealing with men has never been her favourite thing, and her patience has grown especially thin since she’s been here. “I don’t want to hear it. Thank you. Goodbye.”

Peter stomps off around the side of the house towards the street, muttering under his breath and kicking the gravel as he goes. She catches a few slurs, but it’s nothing she hasn’t heard a hundred times before. Trixie whistles for the dog and Dolly comes back inside, tilts her head inquisitively when Trixie closes the door and sags against it.

It doesn’t really bode well that she’s only been here a few months and has already started burning bridges. And with children. Even better. Now that she’s severed her only reliable means of getting supplies from the town, she’s going to have to make the trip herself. And if it wasn’t clear enough before, now everyone is going to know exactly where her loyalties lie.

If she leaves right now, she might be able to beat the rumour mill into town. She already has her shoes on, tends to keep them on all day because she potters in and out of the house so much. Trixie grabs her keys from the bowl in the kitchen and her coat and scarf from the hook and hurries out to the truck with only one arm inside the windbreaker.

When she gets to town she’s so full of nervous energy that she ignores all of the stores and heads straight for the wharf. It’s historic, built in 1905 according to the brown sign encouraging her to _Explore!_ It started raining again while she was driving, fat drops that she could hear hitting the bed of the truck. It means the wharf is deserted, which she’s glad for. She feels particularly argumentative today, impatient with herself mostly and with everyone else on earth by extension.

As she walks out she can see the water through the gaps in the boardwalk and she wishes she were underneath, looking up. There’s a gift shop and two cafés and a whale experience and she ignores all of it. The rainwater is getting in her eyes and making her lashes stick together, collecting in the gap between the collar of her windbreaker and her neck. Trixie leans her forearms against the railing and looks out at the churning waters of the cove. Everything feels unpleasantly tumultuous; her stomach is rolling over and making her nauseated. Trixie gives up, gives in, and stuffs her hand down into her pants pocket to feel for the tourmaline inside. She knows that it’s psychosomatic, but worrying at the stone with her thumb makes her feel better immediately.

After ten minutes or so she starts shivering and has to go inside. The produce market is the closest store to the wharf entrance, and also the only place she really needs to go while she’s here. She hasn’t visited it yet because she grows so much of her own food and because Peter has done this for her, up till now.

When Trixie shoulders open the door every head in the place turns to look at her, but she’s getting used to that. Rainwater is making her sweater uncomfortably heavy, making it itch the sensitive skin of her throat. Trixie collects a basket from the stack by the door and tucks it at the crook of her elbow. She can feel them looking at her as she walks up and down the aisles, the two cashiers and a customer over by the registers who seems to be in no hurry to leave.

She doesn’t need a lot of things but she takes her time browsing, ponders her decisions for much longer than is necessary. Everybody has laughed and pointed and talked behind Trixie’s back her whole life. She’s desensitised to it, and she sort of wants to give them a show. She thinks of how furious everybody in this whole town must be that they can’t satisfy any of their curiosities, and she has to duck her chin to hide the bloom of her smile.

When she has everything she needs she heads for the cashiers. The older lady behind the cash register makes no move to start scanning Trixie’s items. She looks her up and down very slowly and Trixie stands with her hands in her back pockets and the wet ends of her hair dripping onto the floor.

“You’re the new girl in town.” It isn’t a question, and there’s no question in the way the woman is looking at her, either. Her arms are folded over her chest and her lips are pressed together, everything about her drawn up tight. She gestures towards herself with one hand. “Betty.”

Trixie is divulging a strange amount of satisfaction from not telling her name to anybody that she meets. She didn’t come here looking for a whole new community, and she sort of likes that Katya is the only one that knows it. Even Peter never knew her first name, and he certainly isn’t going to now.

“Nice to meet you, Betty.” Trixie doesn’t offer a hand to shake. They’re blanched, her knuckles red and swollen with cold, and still wet. Not the first impression she’s looking to make.

The other cashier is younger, more beautiful than anyone living in a town like this has any right to be. But then so is Katya, and if she can allow herself the indulgent thought, so is Trixie. Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail that pours over one shoulder in a shiny black torrent. She’s chewing disinterestedly on her bubblegum and leafing through a gossip magazine, apparently already having lost interest in Trixie. Betty hasn’t, though. She’s peering at Trixie over the top of her thick-rimmed glasses. When she seems to realise that she’s not going to get any more information, she finally starts ringing up Trixie’s purchases.

“People have seen what you’ve been doing, and somebody ought to let you know. You shouldn’t associate with her.”

Trixie tilts her head and smiles sweetly. “I’m sorry, who?”

It has the desired effect. The other girl puts her magazine face down to watch them unabashedly, and a scowl rolls across Betty’s face so swiftly that Trixie hears the crack of thunder and straightens her spine. Betty is pushing Trixie’s produce down towards the end of the counter with more vigour than is really necessary. Outside the rain is picking up again, beating against the windows and streaming off the far corner of the guttering. It makes Trixie claustrophobic and she widens her stance to earn herself some more room.

“The witch. We don’t talk to her. And we don’t shop at her store.”

“She’s not that bad,” the other girl pipes up. She’s inspecting one perfectly manicured hand like she’d rather be any place other than here, but her whole body is angled towards the two of them now.

Betty’s face gets rapidly more pink. “Shut up, Violet. She doesn’t belong here.”

Trixie starts bagging her own groceries, since it’s becoming very clear that Betty is not going to do it for her. She’s making a mess of it, putting easily bruised things at the bottom and heavier items up top, but she needs to be out of this store right now. Before she embarrasses herself, or Katya, or both of them.

“I’ve liked some of her products,” Violet offers. “She told me which essential oils to use for my migraines.”

Betty’s face has the pinched discomfort of somebody who has encountered something very sour. Her nails are long and they clack against the keys when she has to manually type in the weight of some of the produce Trixie has picked out.

“I’ve lived in this town my whole life.” She looks away from the cash register and back at Trixie. “I’ve known her for thirty years. I’ve seen what she’s capable of.”

Thunder cracks right outside, for real this time, and Trixie jumps. She feels too small for her skin suddenly, like she’s slip-sliding around underneath. The unpleasantly phosphorescent flicker of the strip lighting over the aisles is making Trixie feel like she’s in a laboratory, sprawled and pinned in place at the ankles and wrists ready for dissection. She thinks of Katya, gentle and lovely, and feels a sudden surge of possessiveness in the pit of her stomach.

“Which is what?”

“Oh honey, you don’t know?” Betty scans through the last of Trixie’s items and braces both of her hands flat against the counter to lean forwards. “She killed her husband.”

Trixie’s entire body goes cold and for a moment she thinks she might get sick. Betty has a smug, calculated smile that only makes her face even more sharp and disagreeable. Violet rolls her eyes and picks up her magazine again, too haughty to entertain the morsels of gossip she has clearly heard many times before.

It is so juvenile. Betty lords each tidbit of information over Trixie, refusing to total her purchases so she can pay and get out of here. The rain is so loud on the corrugated rooftop that it drowns out the muzak and forces Trixie to step in closer to Betty.

“She didn’t _kill him_,” Violet says. She closes her magazine this time and tucks it beneath her own register. “That curse thing is bullshit.”

Betty whips around to glare at Violet. The veins in the backs of her hands are purple beneath the papery, age-spotted skin. When she scowls, the creases between her eyebrows and at the corners of her mouth get markedly more pronounced. Violet presses her red lips together and stares Betty down. At least there’s one person in this town who doesn’t seem openly hostile towards Katya.

“Fourteen eighty-six,” Betty says when she turns back around. Trixie hands her credit card over, unthinking, and Betty taps it against the counter a couple of times. “All I’m saying Beatrice, is that Michael was perfectly fine until he married her.”

“Oh, my God,” Violet mutters, and gets up from her register to wander off down one of the aisles. Trixie can’t imagine her stocking shelves or mopping the linoleum, can’t imagine her interacting with customers, even. She has looked achingly bored the entire time Trixie has been in the store, but that’s preferable to Betty’s open hostility.

“I suppose it makes sense for someone like you to gravitate towards someone like her. Someone who understands a more. . .modern lifestyle.”

Trixie wants to laugh, so badly. She has found it to be a uniquely queer experience, decoding the euphemisms that other people offer up to make themselves comfortable with her identity. At family functions she used to loudly announce that she’s a lesbian and her brothers and her sister would blush furiously and stalk away from her, until she just stopped going entirely. It’s exhausting trying to decipher whether someone is just awkward, or deliberately malicious, so she prefers to surround herself with people who can say the word _lesbian_ and not have to rinse out the bitter taste in their mouth afterwards.

She gets her card back and signs the receipt, picks up the brown paper bag with her items. It’s bulging awkwardly because she did such an awful job of packing it and she has to wrap both arms around it so things don’t start spilling out.

In the doorway she hesitates halfway out and turns back over her shoulder. She’s already getting soaked and the bag is going to disintegrate; she’ll have about thirty seconds to make it to her car before that happens. She’s been churlish all day, so why stop now?

“Even if she is a murderer,” Trixie says in her most saccharine voice. It’s the one she would use with the television executives and then have to stare at herself in the bathroom mirror for twenty minutes after each meeting to try to stop dissociating. “Her company is certainly preferable to yours, you hateful bitch.”

She catches Violet’s crow of delight right as she lets the door slam behind her and it makes her grin in spite of the rain already saturating her sweater and making her skin clammy. Trixie doesn’t allow herself to turn back and see Betty’s face, certain that the picture of it she’s conjuring for herself is both accurate and sufficiently wonderful.

At the car Trixie uses her hip to pin the sodden grocery bag against the door so she can free up a hand and fish her keys out of the pocket of her windbreaker. She gets inside and dumps the bag in the floor of the passenger side, hears it split open and refuses to look. Her scalp is itchy with dampness and she cards both hands through her hair. She puts the key in the ignition but doesn’t turn it yet, needs a minute to collect herself before she starts the engine running.

Adrenaline has left a flint taste in the back of her mouth and she rummages around in the glove compartment for some gum. She can’t see out of any of the windows, the rain coming down hard enough to shake the bed of the truck. When her passenger door pops open it makes her let out a tiny yell and she rears back against her own door until she sees that it’s Katya and relaxes in her seat. Katya hops up into the truck with a grunt and slams the door, shakes her head like a dog to get her bangs out of her eyes.

“I saw you walk by with a look on your face that said you’ve just spent some time with Betty, and I thought I’d better come and supervise you so you don’t off yourself.” She’s grinning, and she brings a towel out from inside her coat to offer Trixie. “Also, you’re really wet.”

Trixie huffs a tiny, desperate noise and accepts the towel from Katya. She’s not quite sure what to do with it, settles for wringing the water out of the ends of her hair and swiping it over her face a couple of times. Katya is twisted around in her seat with one elbow propped against the back of it, looking at Trixie. Each time she blinks she leaves a little smudge of mascara underneath her eye. Without stopping to consider, Trixie reaches out and swipes it away with the pad of her thumb.

Their twin breaths are fogging up the windows of the truck and making everything intimate and amniotic. _You’re really wet_ is hanging in the air between them, because Trixie has left it too long to voice any of the retorts that crowded her tongue. They sit in the silence, both dripping onto the seats. Trixie is so relieved to see her, a more-than-kind face, after getting into two separate confrontations today.

_She killed her husband_.

It’s circling around and around in her head like a crane fly, flinging itself against the window with a thud so that she can’t refuse to look. And the worst of it is, she doesn’t know whether she’s more upset about the implication that Katya could have hurt someone, or the fact that she’s clearly not a lesbian.

“Are we fighting?” Katya says very quietly. She’s drawn one knee up into the seat as well to angle her body more towards Trixie.

It is so ridiculous. Trixie has known Katya for less than a week, sure. But she’s seen her speaking in soft Russian to Dolly, seen her with her hands buried in the earth of Trixie’s vegetable beds. Hasn’t ever heard a single word of ill will towards anybody come out of her mouth. Gentleness spills like warm pink light from her. Right now she’s got her short nail in the groove of her cords and she’s sliding it up and down the length of her thigh.

“No, we’re not fighting. I just got spooked.”

“I’m very spooky,” Katya agrees in that awful, mid-Atlantic smoker’s rasp, and flashes her teeth. “Tell me what you need?”

Trixie captures Katya’s hand in both of hers to stop her fidgeting. She strokes her fingertips over the so-soft skin at the inside of Katya’s wrist and feels her pulse jump there and the flex of her tendons. “This is fine. This is good.”

“Wow. Betty did a number on you, huh?” Katya’s smiling and she wriggles her eyebrows. “It’s okay. She’s not real. She can’t hurt you.”

Trixie snorts a laugh and lets go of Katya’s hand to let her flail around. It’s cold sitting here in her wet clothes and she turns the key in the ignition, feels the comfortable rumble of the engine coming to life beneath them. Trixie turns up the heat as high as it will go and splays her fingers over the vent. She still has the towel Katya gave her around her shoulders and she untangles it from herself to give it back.

“I have to get back to my very important job and handle all of my very important customers,” Katya pouts. Trixie doesn’t need to look to know that the store is empty, and probably has been all day. “Please pray that I don’t drown during my short but arduous voyage.”

“If you can’t handle this much wetness we’re gonna have a problem.”

It makes Katya shriek in delight and slam the flat of her palm against the dashboard. As she gets out of the car she’s muttering something about Trixie being depraved and rotted, but she spends an extra few seconds standing in the downpour just to wave at her. The rain has weighed down her hair so it sticks flat to her head, pieces clinging to her cheeks and neck. Trixie can feel her entire self beginning to frizz with the dry heat in the car.

She starts the wipers going and brings the town into squeaky focus again. Inside Verbena, Katya is bent over at the waist and scrubbing at her head with the same towel Trixie used. When she pops back up and sees Trixie’s car still sitting there she blows her a kiss and Trixie rolls her eyes, puts the car into drive. She likes her so, so much. Enough that she is ready to forgive her a whole lot.


	4. four.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always to my wonderful ladies, none of this would exist without your support and encouragement.

“Katya, oh my God, don’t- be _careful_,” Trixie yelps and flattens herself against the cabinets as Katya dances right by her, glass held aloft and sticky orange and lime spilling over her hand and down her arm.

Her hair is falling in her face, her bangs getting a little long again even though Trixie trimmed them for her two weeks ago over the bathroom sink. Dolly is following Katya as she loops circuitously around the kitchen, both of them skidding on the tile in paws and sock feet respectively. Trixie’s telephone dates with Kim have been bumped to Saturdays, because she’s busy on Fridays now.

They’re dates. She thinks so, anyway. Each time she makes the drive over to Katya’s place with Dolly sitting in the passenger seat and hanging her long head out of the wound-down truck window, Trixie is fidgety with anticipation. She finds herself unable to stop drumming her fingers against the dash. It’s part of her routine now, after only a month. She usually sees Katya three or four times a week, but they don’t have a set schedule other than their Friday nights.

It started because Katya insisted that she can cook, insisted she be given a chance to prove herself. Trixie is always trepidatious and sometimes downright horrified at the idea of anybody cooking for her, but Katya’s face was pink with childlike enthusiasm where she sat on Trixie’s kitchen counter. She’d had the sleeves of her sweater pulled down over her hands and Trixie had said yes to distract herself from how badly she ached to hold her. Her cooking is actually pretty good. It isn’t Michelin good, isn’t Trixie good, but it’s a lot better than Trixie was, unfairly, anticipating.

Katya hands Trixie a fresh glass, only spilling it a tiny bit. Trixie sucks the margarita from the webbing of her thumb, and then downs half of it. It’s her second, and she’s beginning to feel this one go to her head. She’s not drunk, just pleasantly aware of herself and of Katya. She feels lovely, calm and warm and gentle.

The music player is in the living room, and Katya has it turned up louder than is necessary so that the delicate china rattles in the cabinet. She never uses it anyway, sticks to the same plate and bowl and cup and gets out another of each, unmatching of course, for when Trixie is here.

“I am totally in control of my faculties, thank you so much,” Katya says, and the most annoying part is that it’s true.

Midnight margaritas are a tradition Katya started with her two aunts, Jinkx and Dela. They don’t live here anymore, moved south because the winters are unkind, and Katya seems endlessly thrilled to have someone to share this with again. Her own margarita is virgin, but it doesn’t seem to matter. She is effervescent and enthusiastic and she keeps grabbing Trixie’s wrists to pull her along, trying to get her to dance.

She does. Trixie likes dancing, always has, and she likes feeling how warm Katya is. Sometimes their thighs brush, and Trixie blames the vertiginous tilt of her body into Katya’s on the alcohol. Katya’s dancing is unconventional, seems to mostly involve her rolling her hips and lifting her hands into the air and spilling her drink all over the floor. She’s grinning so wide that it doesn’t matter.

Dolly keeps trying to worm her way in between them, her whole body wiggling with excitement. Trixie stumbles and grabs for Katya to keep from going to the ground, which only makes her crash into the island, and Dolly barks at the cacophonous spill of laughter from them both.

It’s warm enough that Trixie took off her plaid shirt, since it kept falling down her shoulders and getting in the way, and she’s in just her tank. It’s made dark with sweat and clinging beneath her breasts, and she’s caught Katya looking a couple of times.

Today at the store Katya tried a new aromatherapy blend and Trixie can smell it on her now, the two of them dancing close enough that she catches cypress and bergamot every time Katya turns her head. Katya laughs a lot while she dances, her head thrown back, and Trixie watches the work of her throat and allows herself the luxury of imagining what that pale skin might taste like.

She can feel the heat of Katya’s thighs against hers, and she is intoxicated by both the intimacy and the alcohol. Katya’s eyes are on her, she feels them on her ass when she turns around and sways, rakes her hands through her own hair. It’s been a while since she’s done this, but two drinks down she is loosening up and listening to her body again. Katya’s hands come to her hips and draw Trixie back against her. They’re not grinding, not quite, but if Trixie leaned in to Katya even a half inch more they would be.

It is so late, later than Trixie has been awake since she moved out here. It makes her feel open-hearted, like she wants to lay beneath the covers with Katya and whisper all of her secrets.

They don’t have many. Trixie has been spending a lot of time at Verbena, and she often brings Katya home with her when the store closes for the day because she insists that she needs “to see my ladies and my handsome gentlemen, Trixie, I’m their fun aunt.”

The song finishes and starts back playing again immediately because Katya’s got the CD player programmed to loop. They dance together for two more renditions until Trixie’s arms get tired and she sits down right on the kitchen floor with her legs stretched out in front of her. Katya pretends to trip over them and settles next to Trixie, one absent hand scratching Dolly behind the ears.

Trixie lets her head thud back against the cabinet door a bit harder than she means to and she grunts, has to blink to clear the soft-focus edges of her vision. The alcohol has made her loose and lazy and she rolls her head to see Katya beside her. Her cheeks are pink and a bead of sweat slides down from her hairline towards her ear. It feels like they’re teenagers, like she’s taken off her skin and is holding it in her hands.

“Hey, Katya? Can I ask you about something?”

It comes out less slurred than she was anticipating. Now that she’s sitting down she doesn’t feel quite so drunk. Dolly has settled too, her head heavy across Katya’s thighs. With anybody else, Trixie would be jealous, but Katya is so deeply in love with Trixie’s dog that she doesn’t care at all. She gets a little hum from Katya and she turns to look straight ahead again.

It’s much warmer in the kitchen than outside and condensation is beading on the window panes. Katya has a huge island that’s really a table, and there are hooks screwed into the underside of it where she hangs all of her saucepans and skillets. The tequila bottle is on the floor next to Trixie’s foot, because Katya insisted it’s bad luck to put your empties back on the table. She has little sprigs of dried lavender tied up in the windows and she’s growing herbs on the sill. Trixie could sit here for a very long time.

“Did you kill your husband?”

All of the breath goes out of Katya, and Trixie feels it like a blow to her own chest. She regrets it immediately. The music is still playing and it is uncomfortably loud now, inappropriately loud for this conversation. Trixie gets up to turn it off, not at all expecting Katya to follow her, but she is. She does.

“Come with me?” Her voice is so small.

Trixie follows her in her sock feet all the way upstairs. She’s never been up here before and it feels like she’s trespassing, even though Katya keeps turning over her shoulder to check that Trixie is still there. She’s worrying at her bottom lip, but she washed her makeup off hours ago so there’s no red to get all over her teeth.

Up here none of the lights are on. Katya leads Trixie into a bedroom — it isn’t hers, she’s pretty sure — and kneels down in the middle of the floor. The curtains are secured either side of the window with little braided cords and Trixie can see right out over the cove. The trees are dark and feathered like brushstrokes and the moon’s wise, unblinking eye peers in at them. She feels laid bare, and she sinks down to join Katya on the floor so that she can’t be seen anymore.

There’s a rug in here, a threadbare one that coughs up a great cloud of dust when Katya folds it over itself and back out of the way. She sits on her feet and threads her fingers together, traps her clasped hands between her knees. She’s diminishing herself, collapsing inwards, and very carefully not looking at Trixie.

“Have you heard of the deathwatch beetle?”

Trixie shifts to sit cross-legged. There’s an errant thread at the knee of her pants and she tugs on it until it’s long enough to wind around her finger. It’s so quiet and still. At home, even in the middle of the night, Trixie can hear the low groaning of her house and the occasional bleat of the goats out in the cowshed. Katya’s house is silent, like the whole place is holding its breath.

“I told you, I’m from Wisconsin. There’s no bug I have not met.”

It’s not a lie, not exactly. She has heard the term before, from her grandmother’s friends at bridge club. Trixie doesn’t know much beyond the name, but she’s not about to admit that to Katya. Trixie is smart with her hands, not always with her head. She’s not sure that she’s ready for Katya to know that about her just yet.

It does at least get Katya to huff a tiny little laugh, like Trixie has hit her in the solar plexus and forced it out. “The day he died, I was downstairs pottering around like a good little wife.”

Katya has never mentioned her husband before, not in all the weeks that Trixie has known her. She doesn’t seem surprised that Trixie has heard about him; she grew up here in this town and is certainly aware that she is everybody’s favourite topic of conversation.

“I can really see you in an apron. A cute little frilly number? Perfect on you.”

“Duh, I’m so cute.” She wiggles her shoulders as if to prove her point. Not that Trixie needs convincing. “Deathwatch beetles, they uh- they bore into wood.”

Trixie keeps her face slack, doesn’t dare look at Katya. “Honey, you can bore into me any time.”

It’s the wrong thing to say. She always does this, fumbles the heavy stuff in her clumsy hands. Trixie folds them neatly in her lap instead and shuts the hell up, lets Katya explain.

“When they’re looking for a mate they make this ticking sound, and you can hear it in old buildings. In the rafters. You know when it’s summer, and it’s so late but it’s too God damn hot to sleep so you’re just laying there on your back all sticky and disgusting?”

“Sure.”

Trixie thinks on that for a moment, lets herself imagine Katya sprawled like a pre-Raphaelite across her sheets. Her shirt rucked up to show her stomach, or maybe abandoned completely. Frustration making her restless, making her hips shift. Her mouth floods and Trixie swallows, lets all her breath out in a little huff.

“They’ve gotten to be associated with the vigil kept beside the dying. That’s where they get their name. Keats mentions them in Endymion, and Thoreau does in one of his essays. Oh, and they’re in Tom Sawyer, too!”

“Katya,” Trixie says gently. It makes her lift her head and she blinks at Trixie like she’s surprised to find her here.

“I heard them. I fucked up the floorboards, prising them up to try and find them. See where they’re all crooked?”

Trixie leans in to see. It’s so dark in the room that she can’t, not really, but she nods anyway. Katya pushes down on the floor and it creaks loudly, sends a cascade of gooseflesh down Trixie’s spine like cold water.

“I hate straight things,” Trixie offers. She has never been very good at this, doesn’t know what to do with grief, but with Katya she wants to hold out both of her hands and take it from her. “But. I could fix it?”

“No!” Katya blurts, too loudly in the small bedroom. She’s brought her other hand to rest on the floor as well, both of them splayed wide as if in protection.

Sitting here in the dark is not doing much to sober Trixie up. She’s not so far gone that she won’t remember this in the morning, but her filter isn’t working very well. There are so many questions all elbowing each other for her attention, and she picks the worst possible one out of the lineup.

“So what actually happened to him?”

Katya’s face crumples for just a second but she claws it back, smooths herself out the same way she does with her palms against the thighs of her pants whenever she gets out of the car. One rogue, round tear escapes and slides down her face towards her neck.

“He was hit by a truck. While he was making a delivery to the produce market. Betty saw it happen.”

Something small shifts inside of Trixie, but it feels significant. She’s just far enough away from Katya that when she reaches for her it’s graceless and awkward. Trixie knee-walks over and wraps her arm around Katya’s shoulders. Her nose presses warm and pointy against the side of Trixie’s neck. Trixie wants to cradle the back of Katya’s head, wants to kiss her cheeks and rock her, but she doesn’t need to be gentled right now.

“And. . .that’s her problem with you?” Katya gives her a small, small nod. “What the fuck! What an evil cunt.”

The laugh that Katya lets out sounds like it’s choking her. She lifts up from Trixie and fumbles for her hand. Trixie gives it to her easily, lets her thread their fingers together. Katya’s eyes are moving rapidly back and forth like she’s tweaking — Trixie owns a double Michelin restaurant, she knows what that looks like. Adrenaline rushes through Trixie so swiftly that it makes her head feel wet and bloated. She supposes it makes sense for someone like Betty to allow their trauma to calcify, but she can’t fathom how Katya’s husband being hit by a truck could be construed as her _fault_.

“Yeah, that’s the problem” Katya says. “And that’s why I can’t even stand to look at a green apple.”

“Oh.” Trixie keeps her voice very soft, keeps her teasing gentle. “I thought that was just because you have the eating habits of a second grader. How many packs of Skittles do you go through in one day?”

Katya shrieks her first real laugh in what feels like six hours, and shoves on Trixie’s thigh. “Shut _up_! I hate you.”

“I know, I know, you want to kill me,” Trixie says without thinking, and then has to choke back a great tide of grief that wants to come pouring out. “Oh, Katya, I’ve joked about that so much. I’m so-”

“Don’t be sorry. It’s good. It’s been nice to have somebody who doesn’t walk on eggshells around me.”

Trixie smiles, and is surprised to find that she really means it. She wants Katya to be okay, whatever that looks like. Whatever she needs. “Oh honey, you think I could walk on eggshells? In these size nines?”

“With that fat ass?” Katya splutters out through her laughter.

She’s still clutching Trixie’s fingers so tight, shaking her hands in the air and dragging Trixie’s along with her. Trixie is glad for the moonlight and the alcohol, hopes that it will disguise the furious crimson bloom of want up her neck and in the apples of her cheeks. She isn’t stupid. The second she saw Katya something knotted up in her stomach and it has only been working itself tighter the longer she tries to ignore it.

“Can I ask you something else?”

“No, I haven’t killed anybody else.”

Trixie yells out loud and snatches her hand back from Katya, shoves her away with the ball of her foot. “Not that. Oh my God. You’re so awful.”

“What, then?”

“You loved him? It wasn’t like a. . .a beard situation?”

Katya gets up, but she’s not headed for the door so Trixie stays where she is. She rummages in the closet for a minute and comes back with a hunter green baseball cap. She’s wearing it on her fist and it is startlingly anthropomorphic, grotesquely so. Trixie has to look away, just for a second. When Katya kneels beside her again she settles the hat in her lap and traces the round white logo on the front. It’s so faded that Trixie can’t make it out in the low light.

“This was his. He wore it every day, always backwards. My aunts got rid of a lot of his stuff, but I kept this. He wasn’t a beard, Trixie.”

“Okay.”

“But I think, what you’re asking.” Katya tilts her head in consideration, pins Trixie in place. “I do love women. As well. People can like both, you know.”

Trixie opens her mouth and a tiny, embarrassing squeak comes out. Katya’s grinning at her from one side of her mouth. “I know they can! I have a bisexual friend.”

“You have at least two bisexual friends.” Katya pokes her toes into Trixie’s shin. She has allowed her smile to unravel across her entire face now, her nose scrunched up. Trixie feels hollowed out with want.

“Are we friends?”

Instead of answering, Katya gets to her feet. She puts her husband’s hat away inside the closet and closes the door to it, stays facing away from Trixie for a long moment. There are so many other things that Trixie wants to know (_how long has it been, has Katya been with anybody since, does she miss him_) but she’s not sure she can handle the crushing disappointment if she has to hear that Katya is not over it.

Her grandmother always told her never to ask a question you don’t really want the answer to. So, Trixie keeps her mouth shut. She can hear Dolly downstairs, her paws skittering on the hardwood. This whole, awful conversation has helped to sober her up, but she’s still not good to drive.

“Is this why you don’t like being in the truck?”

“No, that’s because of your awful driving,” Katya turns around to fire back at Trixie, but she’s laughing.

She pads over and holds out a hand, brings Trixie to her feet as well. Her brain stays on the ground for a moment longer than the rest of her. She really, really can’t drive home right now. “I might have to crash here tonight.”

Her voice pulls up at the end like it’s a question, but it isn’t. Katya’s nodding, still holding Trixie’s fingers, and she rotates her wrist to seal their palms together. She uses that grip to bring Trixie out of the bedroom with her and closes the door behind them. It feels like she’s closing the door to their conversation, too. They head downstairs and Katya sheds her grief in layers, reveals herself pink-raw and shiny by the time they’re in the kitchen.

Trixie takes Dolly outside on the leash to use the bathroom. She doesn’t bother with a jacket, doesn’t feel the cold while she’s out there, but when she comes back inside she’s shivering. Katya clicks her tongue and rubs Trixie’s biceps to put the warmth back into them. She’s gentling her, babying her, and it should be the other way around but Trixie is not about to be the one to put words to what they’re doing.

“It gets really cold in the house at night. Which works for me, because I’m a cryptkeeper.” Katya is busying herself at the sink, filling a shallow bowl with water that she sets on the floor for Dolly, and then coming back to pour two glasses for them both. It’s giving her an excuse not to look at Trixie, and in turn giving Trixie an excuse to stare at her. “I have a space heater that I put in my room, but I only have one.”

“Are you inviting me to share your bed?”

Trixie keeps thinking she’s more sober than she really is, and then she opens her mouth and her tongue feels uncomfortably large. Katya’s laughing _at_ her, not with. She shuts off the stream of the faucet and heads for the doorway with a glass in each hand, flips the lightswitch with her elbow as she moves past. It leaves Trixie for a moment reeling and disoriented in the suddenly dark kitchen.

The dog hesitates at the foot of the staircase and tilts her apprehensive head from side to side. She whines, low and reedy, and Katya turns to see her. “Come on, _milaya devushka_. Time for bed.”

Katya whistles, and Trixie feels it like a fist right through the core of her. She heads up the stairs with one palm flat against the wall to keep her balance, wishing she had Katya’s hand in hers instead. At the top she flounders, unprepared to see Katya’s bedroom for the very first time. And then her blonde head peeks around the doorframe and she quirks an eyebrow and Trixie can’t stand to be anything less than right next to her.

“Drink that whole thing.” Katya nods towards the pint glass of water she’s set out on the nightstand. Trixie sits sideways on the mattress, feet on the floor, and drinks the whole thing down. Katya stands with her hands deep in the pockets of her pants, watching her. “Good. That should help your hangover.”

Trixie groans, preemptively. It’s been a while since she’s been drinking, and tomorrow morning — later this morning — is going to be miserable. But Katya looks pleased with her, is smiling at her, and Trixie wonders if maybe Katya will be convinced to let her curl up with her head in her lap.

“Do you need something to sleep in?”

“Oh, um. . .yeah. Shirt or something?”

Katya’s rifling through the drawers of her dresser and she flings a t-shirt over her shoulder towards Trixie, straightens up with a bundle of clothes in her fist. She disappears off to the bathroom down the hall and Trixie hurries out of her pants and tank top, peels off her bra as well. The shirt Katya has given her must be the biggest one she owns. It’s dark green with a white vinyl logo on the front of it that’s so cracked Trixie can’t tell what it used to be.

She inspects herself in the mirror over the dresser. The shirt is tight over her chest, the material ribbed between her breasts. It rides up to show two or three inches of her stomach above the waistband of her underwear. Trixie gets into bed, teeth unbrushed, to avoid the hot shame of Katya seeing her almost naked for the first time.

It isn’t supposed to be like this. It _won’t_ be like this. Trixie has lingerie, lots of it. After things ended with Bob, she was dragged to the mall because Kim insisted that a new wardrobe would make her feel better about everything. It didn’t, not really, but she has some cute things now. Things with lace and velvet and sheer panels, satin and silk.

Things she is very much looking forward to sharing with Katya.

When Katya returns Trixie is lying on her back like a river stone, heavy and unmoving. Her eyes are open and she watches Katya’s moon shadow growing larger and larger across the ceiling as she moves through the room. She fiddles with a couple of things, like she’s delaying having to get in bed with Trixie. The space heater is plugged in across the room, a safe distance from the flammable bedsheets. Katya flips it on and the low, loud rattle fills the room suddenly.

She gets into bed and echoes Trixie, lies on her back. Dolly is standing like a benevolent spirit at the foot of the bed, eyeing the two of them, and then she hops up onto the sheets. She curls up at their feet and Katya makes an affronted noise. Trixie turns her head to see, peels one eye open.

“Better get used to that.”

Katya makes a tiny noise. Trixie is too tired and yeah, sure, too drunk to decipher it right now.

Now that she’s lying down and the white noise of the space heater is filling up her brain so she doesn’t have to think, she’s suddenly exhausted. The synthetic, burnt-dust smell is not unpleasant, and beneath it she can smell Katya’s detergent and Katya’s warm skin. Trixie is made brave by the darkness and by the late hour, so late that it’s almost time to start calling it early.

She slides her hand blindly across the sheets until it bumps Katya’s and leaves it there, invitation but not expectation. After a long moment, Katya’s pinky hooks around Trixie’s and she tugs twice. Trixie rolls onto her side to face Katya and brings her knees up. It’s been a long time since she’s been in anybody’s bed. Especially someone she likes so much. Someone she _wants_ so much.

“Hey, Trixie?” She makes a little noise of assent. “Thanks. For letting me talk about him.”

“Thanks for trusting me,” Trixie whispers back.

Exhaustion is lapping at her, eroding her slowly and drawing her down and down but she is kicking furiously, fighting it. She’s in bed with Katya. It feels like a waste to not be touching her. Trixie scoots closer, nudging Dolly with her feet in the process and getting a disgruntled noise from the dog for that.

When she settles, Katya rolls to face her. She’s breathing through her nose, a little heavier than Trixie is used to, or maybe it’s just that she isn’t usually close enough to hear. Trixie is very aware of her bare legs, the red welts her underwear are leaving at her hips, her mouth fuzzy with alcohol.

“Will you hold me?” Trixie waits a beat too long to say yes and Katya starts backpedalling furiously, starts recoiling. “Forget it, I’m sorry, God. That’s so gay. Sorry.”

Trixie reaches for her in the darkness, her pale hands searching through the leaves of the night until she can get an arm at Katya’s waist and haul her in close. She slides easily across the sheets, loose-limbed and wanting. Trixie can be remarkably self-involved, but she’s not an idiot.

“Come here, and shut the fuck up. Oh my God. Turn over, you’re not jabbing me with your knees all night long.”

She loosens her grip enough that Katya can turn over and then tightens it again, splays her palm at Katya’s stomach. Over her shirt, but she can feel the warmth of her skin through it and the lift and collapse of her chest as she breathes. She’s making these tiny snuffling noises, like she might be crying, but Trixie is not about to call her out on that.

Trixie falls asleep like she’s beneath a dropcloth, everything muffled all at once. When she wakes up neither Katya nor Dolly are in the bed with her, but there’s a fresh cup of coffee and a bottle of Advil on the nightstand. She swallows two down. Her bladder is growing rapidly more insistent and she gets out of bed, uses the bathroom.

Now that she’s up, she can hear Katya downstairs. She’s singing to the dog, off-key and quiet like she’s worried about waking Trixie. She must hear the cistern refilling — it is obscenely loud — and she shouts, her voice echoing up the stairs.

“Trixie, I’m making eggs. Are you alive? Can you eat?”

It’s warm in the kitchen, much warmer than the rest of the house. Dolly is lying at Katya’s feet by the stove, her tail thumping arrhythmically in the hope of scraps. The eggs Katya’s making are from Trixie’s chickens; she brings her as many as she needs, as many as she likes.

“I’m alive.” Trixie hops up onto the island so she can swing her legs. It’s early, but she’ll need to head home for the rest of the animals pretty soon. “I actually- I feel really good. Are you, um. . .feeling good?”

Katya turns around and points at Trixie with the spatula. Some scrambled eggs drop onto the floor and Dolly land-swims close enough to vacuum them up. Trixie notices quite suddenly that Katya is dressed, in overalls and a huge knitted sweater and galoshes, and that Dolly’s leash is in a different spot on the counter. She must have taken her out already, and Trixie wonders whether she got any sleep at all.

“I feel great, Tracy. It’s like, you know.” She flutters her hands in the air around her face. “Weight’s lifted. All that. Hungry?”

Trixie kind of forgot where she is, this morning. She put her socks back on to come downstairs, because the floor is cold, but not her pants. Not any of her real clothes. She’s sitting here, in the daylight, in the clothes she wanted so desperately to avoid Katya seeing her in last night. Until this morning, she didn’t know that her thighs get pink when she blushes, too.

“Starving,” she says, and accepts the plate Katya presents to her. She hops down from the island and roots in the silverware drawer for two forks, hands one over.

Katya is watching her. Her bangs are funky, sticking up in places, and there’s a smudge underneath her eye where she didn’t quite get all of her makeup yesterday. She tilts her head and gives Trixie a small smile, like she’s surprised and thrilled to find her here.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Katya shrugs. “You’re cute in the mornings.”

Trixie takes that, absorbs it, allows it to pass without incident. She can’t stop working her tongue around her fuzzy teeth, anxious to eat and get the taste of the morning out of her mouth.

It’s not now. Whatever this is, whatever they’re doing, it’s not this morning. Probably not today.

She watches Katya bend ninety degrees at the waist to fuss over the dog, watches her straighten up again and grin at Trixie, and she knows. It’s going to be soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd love to hear what you thought!


	5. five.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> validation station, I am so grateful every day for your never-ending support and guidance. and stutter, this would not exist without you. i don't have the words to thank you enough.

“Alright. No. Certainly not,” Katya says when she opens the front door. It stops Trixie in her tracks and she opens her mouth to respond, but Katya is already stepping out of her own door.

She grabs for both of Trixie’s hands to pull her into the house. Katya doesn’t like when Trixie tries to lean into the doorway and kiss her cheek hello, won’t ever reach for Trixie across that space. The only time Trixie ever asked she hurriedly explained it away with something about bad luck and house spirits that reside in the threshold.

Dolly barrels her way inside and disappears towards the kitchen in search of water. Katya leaves the dish out for her all the time now, and she always goes to look for it right away.

“What? What’s your problem?”

Katya rakes her eyes up and down Trixie for a second time and clicks her tongue, folds her arms over her chest. “This is untenable. You can’t go like this.”

Before she got in the truck to come over to Katya’s house, Trixie spent almost an hour deciding on her outfit. It’s been the kind of beautiful, crisp day that makes her so glad she doesn’t live in Los Angeles anymore. She walked Dolly in the woods this morning and stomped on the leaves just to hear them crunch beneath her boots. Now that the sun has gone down it’s gotten colder. She’s wearing a new sweater she got from the L.L.Bean Catalog when she realised she doesn’t have any cold weather clothes. It’s a pink chunky knit thing that makes her feel tiny and precious, makes her feel snuggly. She has two thermal layers underneath it, and a white bobble hat, because she doesn’t want to be so miserably cold that she can’t enjoy Katya’s company.

“You don’t think I’m cute?”

Katya sighs and doesn’t even dignify that with a response. She’s wearing black jeans and a black turtleneck and a crimson plaid coat. A small part of Trixie is preoccupied with the thought of fisting both hands in the lapels of that coat and dragging Katya against her, persuading her that this is a really bad idea and they should just stay here instead.

She doesn’t get her chance, because Katya has already disappeared inside of the coat closet to rummage around. She emerges, triumphant, with a grey coat and a scarf that looks very much like she knitted it herself. Trixie takes the coat from her and struggles into it, feels balloon-limbed and lumbering like the Michelin Man.

Katya wraps the scarf around Trixie’s neck for her. Her hair gets trapped underneath and Katya eases it out so gently, her cold fingers brushing the back of Trixie’s neck. She is always so gentle, so mindful of where she’s putting her hands. Nothing is accidental. Trixie lets the breath get stuck in her chest. Katya’s hands are still touching her bare skin, her fingertips tracing tiny circles.

Every day they are working their way towards _something_ and they both know it, but neither of them has been courageous enough to put words to it. For the first time in her life, Trixie is being careful. She wants to treat Katya tenderly, wants to make sure she’s totally okay with each step they take towards the inevitable.

Katya slides her hands down until she’s holding on to both ends of the scarf and she leans in, kisses Trixie’s cheek. She lingers long enough that Trixie can feel the warmth of her and smell her perfume. She doesn’t wear it often, and Trixie likes the idea of Katya putting it on especially for her, wanting to impress. When she steps back she’s blushing, but her chin is set in defiance.

“I can’t believe you didn’t bring a coat. Thought you were supposed to be a hick. You should know how to dress for weather, Tallulah.”

“We were too poor for coats.”

Trixie lets more of her accent slip out than she usually does, hits the vowels hard to make Katya scream a laugh. It’s not untrue, but she doesn’t need to get into that right now. Not when Katya is grinning up at her as she pulls on her black galoshes. She looks sleek and streamlined and so good that Trixie can’t stop staring, but they do that now.

It’s been a couple of weeks since she slept in Katya’s bed, and they’ve seen each other almost every single day. They’ve been on hikes with Dolly, carved a pumpkin together for Katya’s porch. Katya helped to fix Trixie’s busted guttering and then insisted on staying all night to make sure the storm didn’t dislodge it again. They sat up in the reading room together, their knees bent and Katya’s slender feet nudged in between Trixie’s larger ones. The rain and the thunder had made the room seem smaller than it really is, and Trixie had ached to hold Katya against her chest instead.

When Katya started yawning Trixie had taken her hand and brought her to bed.

Friends can cuddle up together on the couch. Friends can fall asleep in each other’s arms and make each other breakfast the next morning. Trixie keeps telling herself that, and Kim too. Last week on the phone, Kim had patiently listened to Trixie tell a story about something Katya had done. She has endless anecdotes, is overflowing with them. Sometimes when she gets home from an afternoon at Verbena, Trixie finds herself telling the dog all about her day with Katya as if Dolly has any idea what she’s saying.

At the end of the phone call, Kim had very quietly asked _Trixie, when are you going to tell her_? She had brushed it off, done her best to distract Kim with questions about her own life, but she hasn’t been able to stop thinking about it. It’s still circling around and around in her head, restless and unavoidable. Katya is her best friend. Whenever anything happens, any small blip in the steady rhythm of her day, she wants to talk to Katya about it right away. She wants to be near her always, wants to touch her and be touched right back.

“Are you gonna be okay here, _milaya devushka_?” Katya’s got the dog’s long head cradled in her hands and she’s bent at the waist to love on her, leaving little red kiss prints all over her snout.

“She’ll be fine,” Trixie says. “It’s us I’m worried about. I don’t know if you’re aware, but it’s the one night of the year that it’s acceptable for the townsfolk to literally gather with pitchforks.”

Katya scoffs, and straightens to look at Trixie. This whole night was her idea. She wants it so much that Trixie couldn’t bear to say no to her, even though she has a terrible foreboding feeling in the pit of her stomach. Katya keeps lifting up onto her toes in her galoshes, and she has her hands clasped and held against her chest now. It’s so endearing that Trixie can’t stop smiling at her.

“Is it too ooky spooky for you, Tracy? Are you _afraid_?” She drops her voice an octave and drawls it, leans in close to Trixie’s face. “I won’t let anybody snatch your soul, Barbara.”

“What if it’s you I’m afraid of? You ghoul. You fucking rotted corpse.”

Katya is spilling over with laughter, choking on it, and she clutches Trixie’s forearm in both hands to keep herself upright. She’s spluttering something about how mean Trixie is and Trixie is grinning so wide, nodding in agreement. When Katya has her breath back she lets go of Trixie and ushers her out the front door. She gives Dolly a last kiss and says something to her very softly in Russian.

“Why are you trying to indoctrinate my dog against me?”

“I only hang out with you so I get to hang out with _her_,” Katya says.

It makes Trixie laugh in spite of herself. Whenever any of her friends back in Los Angeles were at her place and Dolly showed them affection Trixie would have to fight back waves of ridiculous, juvenile jealousy. With Katya it doesn’t bother her at all. She’s glad that the two most important women in her life like each other so much.

It seems like the entire town is out tonight. It’s a fifteen minute walk from Katya’s house to the field where the bonfire has been set up, and Trixie sees more people than she has the whole time she’s lived here. Katya is at her elbow, chattering away, and Trixie can see her breath in little puffs at her peripheral. She wants so badly to be holding her hand, but that is absolutely out of the question tonight. Anxiety is alive in her stomach, sending gooseflesh down the backs of her thighs.

At the field people are standing in little clusters together, circling the bonfire. It hasn’t been lit for very long so it isn’t roaring quite yet. There are a lot of kids in costumes, and a few teenagers and adults as well, but most people are bundled up warm against the bitter night. Trixie is grateful for her borrowed coat, and grateful for the warmth of Katya right next to her.

Katya spots Betty approaching them before Trixie does. Her face blanches in the orange light of the fire and she takes an awkward step backwards, her shoulders coming forwards and up. “Trixie, Trixie,” she says helplessly.

“What is it? What’ve you seen? You know none of this stuff is real.”

She hears Betty’s voice before Katya can even get her mouth open to answer. Trixie turns around and shifts to the right a tiny bit, shielding Katya as much as she can without making it obvious. Betty isn’t looking at her anyway, she’s staring Trixie down. She’s shorter than Trixie is, but not by much, and spite gives her an extra couple of inches.

“Beatrice, how nice to see you engaging with the community.”

Trixie opens her mouth to respond, but Katya’s hand is fisted in the back of her coat and tugging. Now that she’s a real part of Katya’s life, Trixie knows that she catches the bus two towns over whenever she needs groceries because Betty won’t serve her at the produce market. She doesn’t like confrontation, doesn’t like harsh words. Instead of coming for Betty’s throat, Trixie closes her mouth.

“Be sure to stay away from scary things on Halloween. You know, like ghosts, and zombies, and murderous witches.” Her eyes dart away from Trixie to land on Katya for barely half a second, but it’s enough that Trixie takes an enormous breath and balls her fists.

Behind her, Katya makes a tiny, wounded noise. Trixie feels so fiercely protective of her that for a moment she really considers putting her teeth to Betty’s jugular. Instead, she fumbles blindly behind herself for Katya’s hand and squeezes her fingers when she finds them.

“You’re right. I should stay away from monsters.”

She takes great pleasure in shouldering Betty out of her way, Katya bobbing along at the end of her arm as the two of them move past. Trixie keeps them walking right around the circumference of the fire until they’re at the opposite side and out of Betty’s view.

Katya’s giggling, and it is teetering right on the edge of hysterical, but Trixie tucks both of their clasped hands in her deep pocket and lets her work through it. She doesn’t trust herself to speak just yet. Her tongue still has a flint taste and adrenaline is making her want to put her fist through something.

The bonfire is beginning to generate real heat now. Not as many people are around this side of the fire, because the stalls set up to sell hot cocoa and candy apples are at the other side. It makes Trixie feel safe to keep Katya’s hand in her pocket and stand close to her, duck her head and lean in close to talk.

“Does this happen every year?”

“I haven’t ever been before,” Katya says quietly. Trixie makes an affronted noise, but Katya doesn’t give her the chance to say anything more. “I haven’t had a nine foot tall lesbian to defend my honour, before.”

“Yeah, you still don’t,” Trixie laughs. “I am definitely not going to be defending your honour. You slut.”

Katya rolls her eyes into the back of her head and makes a breathy, high-pitched noise and it’s so overblown, so stupid. It really shouldn’t make Trixie suddenly aware of her hips and her thighs. She shoves on Katya’s shoulder and it breaks her out of her moaning and makes her laugh instead, loud and screeching.

People are beginning to bunch together close to them as more and more of the townsfolk come down to see the fire. Katya takes her hand back from Trixie’s pocket and she lets her, has to, because she can’t call attention to it. Whatever they’re doing, it goes unsaid. Katya puts a foot of careful distance between them. They stand together for a little while listening to the logs crackle and spit, the chatter of the people around them.

Katya is so beautiful in the firelight. The warmth of the bonfire has pinked her cheeks and her eyes are the darkest Trixie has ever seen them, shiny with joy. Thinking of her, able to see the bonfire from her house every year and aching to be here in front of it, is making Trixie’s heart feel too big for her chest. Katya is thrilled by everything, up on her tiptoes again as if to get a better view.

The urge to hold her is so strong that Trixie takes another step backwards, puts a little more distance between them so that she doesn’t reach out and wrap her arms around Katya’s shoulders from behind. She’d do it, here in front of all of these people. Let them look.

“I’m gonna go get us powdered donuts. Stay right here.”

Katya doesn’t give her the chance to protest. She’s already disappearing, weaving her way through the crowds. They part for her, most people taking a stumbling step or two back away from Katya when they see her approaching. She has her head ducked and she’s moving quickly. Trixie watches until she can’t see her anymore, and then a little bit longer after that.

She’s inadvertently put herself closer to one of the groups of people nearby, and now she can hear the snippets of their conversation more clearly. She knows immediately that they’re talking about Katya. It’s all anybody in this whole town seems to want to do.

“Isn’t she at her most powerful tonight?” one of the girls says, a thread of real alarm in her voice. They’re teenagers, Trixie can tell from how young and how incredibly stupid they sound. “Do you think she might hex someone?”

“It’s such a fucking waste, man.” That’s Peter, she’s pretty sure. Trixie breathes raggedly through her nose like a bull. “She’s a hot piece of ass, but that haunted pussy? No way.”

The other boys all jeer and crow with laughter, falling over themselves to be the next person to crack a joke, the next one to have the light of the group’s amusement on them. Trixie is trying not to make it obvious that she’s listening, hasn’t dared allow herself to move even an inch closer, but she hears them clear as if she were standing in the middle of their circle.

“She’d bite your head off like a black widow. Look at what happened to the only person who ever dared to fuck her. I bet she’s all dried up and dusty.”

The girls erupt in a chorus of disgusted _ews_, hamming it up in the hopes that one of these boys will want to fuck _them_. Trixie is so glad not to be a teenager anymore. She remembers the paralytic awkwardness, trying to flirt with the least threatening boy she could find but having no idea how. She’s grateful to be a self-assured adult, grateful to have somebody who makes flirting easy because she wants them so bad that she can’t help herself.

“Why can’t she just cast a spell for a new husband or something?” The vocal fry on these girls is making Trixie’s hands ball up into fists without her consent. They’d be irritating if they were talking about anything else. But they’re talking about Katya, and so instead of irritated Trixie is furious.

It is so laughable that they’d sooner believe Katya is a witch than accept they have a queer woman in their midst. Trixie bites the inside of her bottom lip, both to distract herself and to remind her to keep her mouth shut. She tastes iron and has to let up a little bit, probes at the sore spot with the tip of her tongue instead. In her curiosity she has wandered far enough from the bonfire that she’s cold now, and she clutches Katya’s coat tighter around herself.

“Do you think it has _teeth_?” Another of the boys is saying. “Do you think her husband threw himself in front of a truck because he couldn’t bear to fuck h- oh. Shit.”

Trixie turns to see then, because it sounds like the boy has two hands around his throat and squeezing. There’s six or seven of them standing in a pack, and just behind them is Katya. She’s got a candy apple in each fist, grotesquely shiny and red in the firelight, and her mouth is hanging open.

Peter nudges one of the others, presumably the last boy to speak if the pallor of his face is any indication. “You’re fucked, Jake. She’s gonna curse you now. Your dick’s gonna drop off.”

Trixie’s whole body floods with hot anger. Her temper and her mouth have always gotten her into trouble, since she was in elementary school. When she’s angry, when she’s hurting, her filter comes down and she says things that she regrets later. She almost, almost manages to keep her mouth shut, but Katya’s face is washed out with horror and she can’t bear to let these kids win.

“She doesn’t need to waste her energy making your dick drop off, since you’re never going to have a chance to use it, you gangly unfuckable little parasite.” The others standing around Jake explode in a riot of jesting noises and whoops. She’s not done. “You think _anyone_, _ever_ is going to want to fuck you? They’re gonna be too distracted by their own reflection in your forehead.”

Katya is so far away, the whole crowd of teenagers between them, but her voice carries. “Trixie. Don’t.”

“You’d be _lucky_ to get your dick bitten off. Do you know how fucking stupid you sound? She won’t fuck any of you so she must be a witch?” Katya flinches, but no one else is looking at her. The eyes of all of the teenagers and several other people are on Trixie. She’s shouting, she knows she is and she can’t seem to stop. “Guess what, dickweed? You can’t accuse every person on earth with the sense not to want to fuck you of witchcraft.”

“_Trixie_!” Katya says sharply. “Let’s go.”

She skirts the group of teens widely and stomps to Katya’s side, her cheeks pink with confrontation and with being chastised by Katya in front of all of these people. She has to hurry to keep up because Katya has immediately started heading for the edge of the field and she’s taking such long strides.

Once they hit the sidewalk she slows down a little to let Trixie catch up. Her eyes are shifting rapidly but never quite landing on Trixie, and she keeps clearing her throat but not speaking.

“Where’s my donut?” Trixie takes one of the candy apples from Katya, freeing up her hand so Trixie can thread their fingers together instead. She doesn’t care who might see. Back there, she laid herself out a lot more plainly than just holding Katya’s hand.

“Huh? Oh. Right. I, uh. . .you always criticize my eating habits, so I thought I’d be healthy.”

Trixie snorts and takes a huge bite of the apple. It gets stuck in her teeth immediately and she works her tongue around her mouth. She can feel Katya’s eyes on her so she hams it up to get a laugh. Anything that will distract Katya from hurting seems like a safe bet right now.

They’re mostly quiet on their walk back to Katya’s house. Trixie can’t really talk since every bite of the candy apple is glueing her teeth together. Katya isn’t eating hers, she’s holding it down next to her thigh and it’s getting covered in all of the fluff and detritus from her pants. It’s getting ruined, but Katya hardly seems to be aware of it still in her grip.

Inside, Trixie leaves Katya in the living room and lets Dolly out to use the bathroom, sets the kettle on the burner to start boiling. When Dolly is done she comes back in and heads straight for Katya, ignoring Trixie’s outstretched hand looking to love her. Trixie fixes tea for them both and finds Katya curled up in the corner of the couch with Dolly’s head in her lap, the dog’s body stretched out along the cushion. Her eyes are closed and her face is totally slack.

“Scooch, Doll-Doll.” Trixie sits down at the other end of the couch and the dog jumps down, affronted, and curls at Katya’s feet instead. “I made tea.”

Katya opens her eyes and accepts the mug from Trixie, holds it against her chest. The steam curls up around her and she breathes deep enough to make her bangs flutter against her forehead. After knowing her for a couple of months, Trixie has learned that Katya sometimes needs space to arrange her thoughts, but she does like to talk things out.

They sit in the silence together. Trixie drinks her tea slowly. She unlaces her boots and toes them off, scoots her sock feet closer to the dog so that Dolly can lay her head on them. Katya isn’t really drinking her own tea. Every now and then she seems to remember that she’s holding it and she takes a tiny sip, but she’s mostly just looking at a point a few inches left of Trixie’s shoulder.

When it gets unbearable, when Trixie feels split open and like all of her raw insides are about to come tumbling out, she takes Katya’s mostly full mug from her hands and sets it down on the floor with her own empty one. She clicks her tongue to warn Dolly away from investigating it with her snout.

“Come here, babe.” She holds out her arm and Katya tucks herself underneath it, her bent knees against Trixie’s thigh. “You wanna talk about it?”

“I hate it when you’re right. We shouldn’t have gone. We should have stayed home and watched a movie.”

Trixie’s hand is at Katya’s shoulder and she can feel the lift and collapse of her torso as she breathes. There’s so much she wants to do. She would like to kiss the crown of Katya’s head, or bring her all the way into her lap.

“Always being right is my cross to bear. But. I don’t think either of us could have anticipated that that would happen.”

“It doesn’t- I don’t want-” Katya’s voice is so small. Another wave of cold fury washes through Trixie. She knows that it’s bad, she learned that the very first day she knew Katya, but seeing it actually shake her for the first time is a different thing altogether.

“Just ask me.”

“What they said. It’s not going to change your opinion of me, right?”

Trixie closes her eyes and hides her face against the top of Katya’s head for a moment. Just to give herself the space to work through that grief. “No, babe. The only thing it changes is that it makes me think you’re even more brave and amazing than I already did.”

“Your sincerity is freaking me out,” Katya mutters.

It makes both of them laugh a little. On the floor, Dolly rolls onto her back and Trixie pets at her with her sock feet, rubbing them against the dog’s chest. “Sorry. I won’t be sincere ever again.”

“The thing is.” Katya flutters her hands uselessly in the air around herself. Trixie can’t see her very well, mostly just getting the crown of her head, but she can hear it in her voice. Her scrunched up nose and the hot, insistent press of tears. “It’s not like I don’t _know_. The people in this town don’t like me.”

Trixie still has her arm around Katya’s shoulders. She likes the warm weight of her head against her chest and the smell of her shampoo, but she really wishes she could see her face for this next part. Holding her like this, standing beside her tonight, all of it has made her want Katya so badly that she can’t stop it anymore. She is hopelessly buffeted by endless waves of need, keeps managing to get her face above water for just a second to take a gasping breath.

“Well I like you. A lot.”

“Oh, Trixie, I like you so much.” Katya straightens up, leaves a hand at Trixie’s thigh. Her cheeks are silvery and salt-raw, the tip of her nose pink. “I like you so, so much.”

The lamp beside the couch is throwing their two shadows up against the wall, every quiver mimicked and magnified. Trixie reaches for her before she knows she’s doing it. Her graceless hands land either side of Katya’s neck, thumbs at the hinge of her jaw. Her lips are parted and she’s staring at Trixie’s mouth.

All of Trixie’s insides feel pulled up towards her heart by a tight string. She’s certain that if she checked, she would have a puckered line right down her sternum. Katya is so still, not breathing, and her skin is warm.

“Is this okay?”

“I’m scared,” Katya murmurs without moving her mouth at all. She’s trembling in Trixie’s hands.

Trixie nods, and tries to swallow down her suddenly dry mouth. “Yeah. I’m scared too. Still, though.”

She leans in and kisses her before either of them can change their mind. Trixie keeps things slow and exploratory, focuses on the hot little puffs of Katya’s breaths against her cheek and the woodsmoke smell of her hair. Her lips are so soft and she kisses Trixie right back, her hand at Trixie’s thigh clutching tighter now. Time stretches out hot and elastic; Trixie kisses her, kisses her, kisses her.

When they break apart Trixie leans her forehead against Katya’s. She would like to kiss her again but they’re grinning too widely, both of them. Katya’s free hand slides into Trixie’s hair and she scratches her short nails over Trixie’s scalp, makes a shiver ripple through her.

“I’ve wanted to do that for such a long time,” Trixie whispers.

It makes Katya laugh wildly and rear back to look at Trixie. Her lipstick is smudged, probably smeared across Trixie’s face as well. She likes that thought a lot. Katya stops laughing and draws her legs up beneath herself on the couch so she can loom over Trixie.

“I know you have. You’ve never been subtle, Trixie. You told me you’re a bottom after I’d known you three days.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Trixie groans, and falls forwards to hide her face against Katya’s chest. Katya’s laughing; it’s shaking her beneath Trixie. Her hand comes up to the back of Trixie’s head, her thumb tracing the shell of Trixie’s ear.

Now that they’ve started, Trixie doesn’t want to stop kissing Katya. Maybe ever. She straightens up and captures Katya’s face in her palms, cradles her head as she kisses her long and slow and deep. Katya slides her knee over Trixie’s thighs and sinks down, lays the heel of her palm right over Trixie’s heart with her fingers against her clavicle.

Katya pulls back a bit, so that she can look at Trixie. She’s so cute like this, rumpled and blushing. Trixie steals another tiny kiss from her and feels Katya’s smile bloom against her mouth. The warm weight of her in Trixie’s lap is distracting, but she looks like she wants to say something so Trixie lets her hands rest at Katya’s thighs and gives her the space to collect herself.

“Trixie. This isn’t like. . .a pity thing? I don’t need you to feel sorry for me.”

“I wanted you the second I first saw you.” Trixie doesn’t think about what she’s saying, the implications of that. It’s _true_, and she’s tired of skirting around the edge of what she means. “I haven’t stopped wanting you since. So no, it’s not a pity thing. You think I have enough compassion in my heart for that?”

Katya lets out a soft little huff of laughter. Her thumb is at Trixie’s bottom lip and she pulls down experimentally for just a second before she lets it spring back into place. Trixie turns her head to kiss the inside of Katya’s wrist and she lets herself linger, finally, feeling the jump of Katya’s pulse.

Dolly has gotten caught up in the excitement and she nudges Katya’s hip with her snout, her tail up in the air and swooshing back and forth. Katya reaches behind herself with her free hand to pat blindly at the dog’s head, but she doesn’t break Trixie’s gaze.

“I know all about the compassion you have in your heart, honey. You just don’t like to show it towards straight people.”

Trixie kisses her, half to wipe the teasing smirk right off her face and half because she can’t believe she’s actually allowed to now. This time Katya deepens things, and Trixie opens to the hesitant press of Katya’s tongue at the seam of her lips. Everything is slick and hot and lovely, and Trixie clutches tight at Katya’s hips.

When Katya breaks the kiss again Trixie whines low in her throat. It doesn’t occur to her to be embarrassed by it. She’s already told Katya how much she wants her. She’s been telling her for weeks, if she’s honest with herself.

“And, Trixie. Trixie. When you say that you. . .want me.” Trixie presses her thumbs into the creases at the tops of Katya’s thighs and she gasps, rocks her hips down sharply. “Does that mean just sex, or?”

“Do you think I usually spend weeks and weeks getting to know people that I just want to fuck?” Trixie slides her hands around to Katya’s ass and hauls her in close until their chests are flush. “You’re- oh my God, this is so embarrassing. You’re my best friend.”

Katya’s whole face breaks open and light comes spilling out. She cradles Trixie’s face between her palms and holds her in place as she kisses her. Dolly has given up trying to steal attention and skulked off to lie beside the unlit fireplace and eye them. They kiss for a long time, until Trixie’s fingertips start to go numb from oxygen deprivation.

“You’re my best friend too, Trixie.”

Trixie can’t stop smiling, her face is all scrunched up and goofy with it. It feels like the floor has righted itself after being just a little bit crooked the entire time she’s known Katya. She kisses her again, hands threaded into Katya’s hair so that she can feel the thrum of her pulse at the base of her skull. “Are you still scared?”

“Spookiest night of the year, mama.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'd love to hear what you thought!


	6. six.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you as always to validation station, i love you ladies endlessly. and to stutter, for looking this over, for sharing your wisdom, and for being the most wonderful.

Trixie is dozing lengthways on the couch. When she got here she took her braids out, which Katya has quickly taken to mean that Trixie wants her hair to be played with. She’s got her head pillowed on Katya’s thighs and her eyes closed, Katya’s fingers sifting slowly through the hair at her temples and making her sleepy and smitten. It’s warm here next to the fire and Trixie feels so contented that she would be wriggling with it if she had the energy.

Halloween was three weeks ago. Nothing has really changed except that now whenever Trixie looks at Katya and her heart gets full up with wanting to kiss her so badly, she actually gets to. The weather turned very suddenly, like the whole town is trapped beneath a dome and it’s about to be turned upside down and shaken. It’s meant they’ve been cuddling a lot, piling all the blankets in the house on Trixie’s bed and generating some heat of their own. Dolly gets shut out of their bedroom in the evenings now, and Katya will sometimes roll out of bed and let her back in on her way to get a huge sweater for each of them to sleep in.

Trixie has slept with a few people in her time; when she moved to Los Angeles she explored her sexuality in great detail. It’s never been like this. Katya’s touches linger on her skin. Sometimes it feels like she has more hands than is possible. The first time, when Trixie got undressed, a fuse had blown and all the lights in the house had gone out at once. Sometimes when she’s riding Katya’s face, it feels like the edges of the room shift into soft focus and Katya’s breathing is so loud that she can’t hear anything else. Not the chickens chirruping outside in the coop, not Dolly’s jealous barking from outside the door.

They haven’t put a label on anything yet, but they’re happy. Trixie is so happy that sometimes she can hardly stand it. She wakes up in the mornings to Katya pottering in the kitchen or sitting against the headboard next to her or sometimes, if she’s really lucky, curled around her and breathing hot little puffs onto the back of her neck. Katya likes to tell her that she’s beautiful but doesn’t like to hear it herself, always cuts Trixie’s soft words down with something scathing and self-deprecating.

It’s nice to laugh in bed. Trixie never had that with Bob, or with anyone she’s ever been with before. One time last week Trixie had to push Katya away from her with her feet at her shoulders and flop, exhausted and galvanised, onto her back. Katya crawled up the bed to lie next to her with a leg slung over her hips and everywhere their skins touched crackled and made Trixie twitch.

She’d been staticky for a half hour afterwards, and every time Katya touched her (which she does a lot) Trixie had jerked like a marionette. Her strings are in Katya’s hands all of the time; she finds herself shadowing Katya’s movements without even thinking about it, echoing the arch of her body up off the mattress and the grasp of her hands.

“Trixie, honey?” Katya touches her thumb to Trixie’s ear. “Are you awake?”

She manages a tiny noise of agreement that makes Katya laugh. Two strong hands come to her shoulders to help bring her upright, and Trixie emerges grumbling and disoriented into the evening. Katya kisses each of her cheeks and then the tip of her nose. She’s smiling, and she’s so warm, and Trixie wants her so much. She keeps wondering how long it’s going to be like this, how long she’s going to ache every time she looks at Katya.

Their kiss builds slowly. Katya’s tongue is a scalding, seeking thing through her mouth and Trixie opens to her, scrambles to get her hands up beneath Katya’s shirt. She skims her knuckles up her abdomen and around, grazes the sides of her breasts to make her gasp. Katya wraps her fingers around Trixie’s wrists and pulls her hands out from underneath her sweater, keeps her in place with a tight grip. The desire is still there, but all of the urgency drains out of her at the way Katya gentles her with the sweep of her thumbs over the backs of Trixie’s hands.

“It’s snowing,” Katya says.

When Trixie turns to look she chokes out a breath of jubilant laughter. She hasn’t seen the snow for nine years, not since she moved to Los Angeles. They hurry to get into their warm things, clutching at each other and stumbling like children. Katya’s knitted beanie is on crooked and Trixie straightens it for her, kisses her once and then one more time just because she looks so cute.

Outside, Katya wanders off right away. It must have been snowing for a while before she woke Trixie up because it’s already a couple of inches deep. She’s pacing around and around and looking at the tracks her galoshes are making. Trixie tips her face up towards the sky and lets the peace of the bright-dark earth fill her up. Flakes collect in her eyelashes and she sticks out her tongue, likes to feel the cold turning slowly warm. When she straightens up again she sees Katya spinning in a circle with her arms stretched out, her grin as wide as the arc of her hands. She is so cute that Trixie can hardly stand it. She feels phantom hands at her back, through her wool coat, and they propel her over to Katya. They fit so neatly together, and Katya hides her cold face inside of Trixie’s scarf and stuffs her bare hands into the back pockets of Trixie’s pants.

“Are you cold?” Katya murmurs.

“Look, I’m just a guarded person, okay?”

Katya snorts and squeezes Trixie’s ass, draws their hips together. “Shut up. You’re not guarded. Not with me.”

“Yeah, well, you make it impossible. Getting into all of my nooks and crannies with your witch talons.”

Katya doesn’t laugh. Not the way Trixie was hoping for. She gets a little huff, of acknowledgement more than amusement. Katya pulls away a bit but leaves her hands in Trixie’s back pockets and squeezes again. Trixie sifts her gloved fingers through the ends of Katya’s hair. It makes static, and she crackles in the electric night.

“You’re pretty in the snow,” Trixie says quietly. The whole world is silent and humbled around them. She wants to stand here for a long time, holding this miraculous woman and watching their twin breaths form little clouds between them.

Katya takes her hands out of Trixie’s pockets so she can shove at her chest instead. Her fingers are red with the cold, her knuckles swollen and just beginning to crack with tiny fissures. Trixie almost, almost goes back inside to find some gloves for her, but she can’t bear to move just yet. Later the ploughs will come through and the streets will be remade in salt and grit. It feels like they’re the only ones awake, the only ones alive, and she won’t leave for even a second.

“Oh!” Katya says, and drops immediately to the ground.

She starfishes outwards and sweeps her limbs back and forth, grinning up at Trixie from her back. The snow is landing on her face and collecting in her lashes and her bangs. Her hat is coming off again and when she sits up it remains on the snow-covered ground where her head just was.

“Trixie, honey, make an angel with me. Come on, come on, please.”

There’s no need for Katya to beg. Trixie’s already going to the ground, trying to figure out how to get onto her back gracefully. They haven’t yet been together long enough that she’s ready to discard all of her layers. She’d like to keep a little bit of decorum in front of Katya, for a while longer.

She’s close enough that the wings of her angel just brush the wings of Katya’s. She’s sitting up beside her, twisted around to watch with one hand planted carefully within the boundary of her angel’s body to support herself.

When she’s done, Trixie gets to her feet. She hauls Katya up as well, rough so that she’ll stumble into her and Trixie will get to catch her, have the line of her body press in close. It makes her scuff the bottom of her angel’s hem, but Trixie kisses the grumbling right off her mouth before she can even really get it out. It’s freezing, but Katya’s kiss is hot and intrusive. She kisses like she’s trying to learn every secret Trixie has ever had, like she wants to peer inside of Trixie’s chest. She kisses like she could do it for hours and hours and never get tired of it, never want to take things further.

The whole world around them is muffled, like it often gets when she’s kissing Katya. Trixie almost wants to go to her knees with reverence for the great splendour of the earth. She won’t, because she’s all wet from making her snow angel and she’s shivering with it, but the idea is there all the same.

“Mama, you keep rattling like that you’re gonna bite right through your tongue. And I have plans for it later, so I need you to not do that.”

Trixie huffs and wraps her arms tighter around Katya, squeezes until she hears all of the breath come out of her in a great rush. “It’s not my fault some lunatic made me lay down in the snow.”

“It’s lie down, honey, is the conventional verbiage.”

“Oh and you know so much about convention?” Trixie gets her hands inside of Katya’s coat and draws her close until their chests are pressed together, proving her point. “God, you’re the worst person I’ve ever met. Don’t ever speak to me again. Take me to bed.”

That makes Katya laugh so loud and so long, her head tipped back as she howls into the night like a jackal. When she’s done she grabs clumsily for both of Trixie’s hands and starts tugging her backwards. She isn’t watching where she’s going, too busy grinning widely at Trixie and blinking the still-falling snow out of her eyes, but she doesn’t stumble or fall down. Trixie doesn’t know how she can do that, but she’s glad for it.

They both peel out of their damp clothes in the mudroom and Katya goes to load everything into the dryer. The dog took one look at the snow and scurried away, tail low and long between her hind legs. She’s lying by the fire now, the last embers burning out in the grate. Trixie bends over to stroke the silk of her ears and the soft place right at the crown of her head.

“Hey, before I pound you out,” Katya says from right behind Trixie. It makes her jump, and makes her cheeks warm. She turns to see her, one eyebrow arched and the smudged red seam of her mouth pulled taut in a grin. “I have a present for Dolly.”

“Oh sure. I’ll give you two some time alone together.”

Trixie, obviously, is not going anywhere. She sinks onto the couch and whistles for the dog, who takes a long time heaving her lumbering body up off the hardwood and padding over. Trixie fusses at her, capturing her head and scattering kisses all across her snout. She only really gets to love on her like this when Katya’s not in the room, because these days the dog has a clear preference.

“Here, _milaya devushka_. Come here, look what I have for you.”

Katya sits on the floor at Trixie’s feet, leaning back against her shins. Trixie works her fingers absent-mindedly at Katya’s shoulders, kneading her muscles. She has something balled up in both hands and she encourages Dolly to poke at it with her snout for a minute before she unfolds it and holds it up.

“Oh my God, you knitted her a sweater.” Trixie doesn’t mean for her voice to sound all punched out with awe like that, but she can’t help herself. It’s pink and has a folded over collar to keep Dolly cosy and it’s the loveliest thing anyone has ever done for Trixie. “That’s so gay. Wow.”

“Trixie look at her, she’s so skinny, she’s not built for winter on a farm. And she’s stylish. This is an important moment in the history of dog fashion.”

Trixie laughs and cups Katya’s cheeks. She’s leaning with her head tipped backwards against Trixie’s knees, looking at her upside down, and she is unfairly gorgeous even from this unflattering angle. Trixie bows over, her spine protesting, and kisses the tip of Katya’s nose.

“Dog fashion, huh? You follow that closely? That where you get all of your style tips?”

“Shut up, shut up, I hate you!” Katya thrashes wildly against Trixie’s shins. “Can I put it on her now?”

The dog has settled next to Katya, her head resting on Katya’s thighs. It’s her preferred position. One day last week Trixie had finished making dinner and gone to find Katya, discovered her sitting on the floor just like this and holding Dolly’s head cradled in one hand while the dog snoozed. Her whole body wiggles with pure canine joy as Katya eases the sweater over her head and guides her two front legs into the holes.

“That is. . .the cutest thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life.”

Katya leans back harder against Trixie’s legs until she separates them to make room for her, and she wraps her arms around the backs of Trixie’s calves and leans her cheek against Trixie’s knee. Dolly has flopped over onto her back, overcome with ecstasy, and the two of them watch her delighted squirming together for a little while.

“It’s not too much?”

“Oh it’s absolutely too much, you psycho. I love it. She loves it.”

Over the last few weeks Trixie has grown accustomed to having Katya’s head between her thighs, but not like this. She gets up slowly, careful not to step on Katya, and when she gets to her feet as well Trixie wraps both arms around her and kisses her forehead. There’s no music, but Trixie sways them anyway. The snow is still falling in fat flakes and it makes the living room feel intimate and insulated.

Tomorrow morning she’ll have to leave early, earlier than usual, and make sure the animals are alright. They’ll be huddled up together close in the hay, she knows that, but a part of her still worries whenever she’s away from them. She has briefly, recklessly debated the merits of loading the truck bed with two goats and five chickens and one curmudgeonly rooster.

“Hey,” Trixie says, quietly enough that Katya could choose not to hear if she wanted. She gets a tiny hum in response, and Katya lifts her head from Trixie’s chest to look at her. “I like you so much.”

Katya wrinkles her nose. “Disgusting. Awful. You promised me you wouldn’t be sincere ever again.”

“Right. Yeah. Sorry.”

She doesn’t mean to be hurt by it. She _shouldn’t_ be hurt by it. It’s just that it’s warm in the living room and Katya is here in her arms, looking up at her, and Trixie still can’t quite believe any of this is really happening. She feels raw this evening, overcome with tenderness, and it must be all over her face. Katya touches her thumb to Trixie’s chin and draws her face down so she can kiss her.

It’s a soft, closed-mouth thing and Katya has her free hand in Trixie’s hair, not moving. When they break apart she smiles and leaves her eyes closed for an extra couple of seconds. She opens them and they’re dark in the low light of the room, her pupils blown out wide.

“You make me so happy. You know that.”

“Yeah.” She does.

Trixie gets her hands underneath Katya’s sweater to touch the smooth, firm plane of her stomach. She loves to touch her bare skin. Katya is soft everywhere, but strong. Sometimes Trixie is driven to distraction by the flex of tendons in her forearms or her thighs and Katya has to tug on her hair to remind her of what she’s doing. This time, Katya yelps and twists out of Trixie’s grip, jerks back away from her.

“Oh, _ow_, your hands are freezing. Get away from me.”

Even as she’s saying it she reaches for Trixie and takes her left hand, captures it between each of hers. She closes her eyes and breathes slowly through her nose like she’s focusing very hard, her lips moving a tiny bit. Warmth spreads from the centre of Trixie’s palm out into her fingertips and up the length of her forearm. She feels heat blooming in her elbows and her toes and the tip of her nose, and when Katya lets her go the furious pink of her skin has faded away. Trixie gives Katya her right hand without being asked to let her do the same. She’s always so warm, like it comes from the core of her. Trixie hasn’t gone to bed cold since Halloween.

“Trixie,” Katya says very softly. “I want you so much that I can’t stand it. But don’t let it inflate your ego, I really can’t handle it if I have two ladies vying for my attention.” Her eyes dart to Dolly, on her back in her sweater with all four legs in the air, before she meets Trixie’s gaze again.

It does inflate her ego, a little bit. Katya is her favourite person to be around, the _only_ person she really wants to be around. It’s good to hear that she is made equally as useless as Trixie by whatever this is between them. She doesn’t need to hear it every single day, but her heart feels too big for her chest tonight and she wants to be babied a little bit, needs Katya to be gentle with her.

“Will you take me to bed?”

“Yes, obviously. You’re so dumb.” There’s so much fondness in Katya’s voice and she cradles Trixie’s cheek in her palm, touches her thumb to the corner of Trixie’s mouth. “What kind of crazy bitch do you think I am? You think I’d say _no_?”

Trixie turns her head into Katya’s touch and captures her thumb between her teeth, draws it into her mouth. She touches her tongue to Katya’s fingerprint and then sucks until Katya grunts and her hips rock shallowly against nothing.

“You’re a slut,” Trixie says around Katya’s thumb. She bites down hard until Katya whines and takes her hand back. “You’re a _whore_.”

They both know that that isn’t exactly true. It’s Trixie who so often finds herself disoriented with longing, waking up in the middle of the night and reaching for Katya across the sheets. She feels cleaved in two so that she can’t focus on anything other than the hot centre of her spilling out, her hands clumsy and fumbling as she tries to keep the most raw parts of herself inside.

Katya is gracious enough not to mention it. Things are different in the daylight, less urgent, and when Trixie wakes up to the alarm clock’s insistent blaring Katya wordlessly hands her a mug of coffee. She drinks half of it down before she feels ready to speak. It’s still dark outside. Katya has left the light on in the hallway and the door ajar rather than turn on any of the lamps in the bedroom. It feels careful, something gentle she’s doing to ease Trixie into the morning. Katya has probably been up for at least an hour already.

By the time they’re dressed Trixie is feeling a little more with it. She teases Katya about the purple-red bloom right below her jaw, captures her with her fingers hooked in her belt loops so she can draw her in close and kiss her slowly. Katya sometimes lets Trixie drop her off at the store on her way home in the mornings. It’s so early that Trixie isn’t expecting it today, so when Katya starts pulling her boots on it stops her where she stands.

“You catering to the morning crowd of ghouls and vampires now?”

“Huh?” Katya almost loses her balance and Trixie offers her elbow, catches her before she can go to the ground. “Oh. No. I’m not gonna open. Snow day. I want to come with you. I want to see my ladies.”

Warmth blooms outwards from the centre of Trixie’s chest and she rolls her eyes to hide it. “Okay, I get it, you only spend time with me so you can hang out with the animals. I’m bottom of the list. That’s fine.”

“Well you _are_ a bottom, honey, I don’t know what to tell you.”

Trixie shrieks, louder than is necessary or comfortable while the sun is still a pink haze at the edge of the world. It makes Dolly bark, just once, and her claws skitter against Katya’s hardwood as she darts rapidly between the two of them.

“I like you more than I like the goats,” Katya offers. She’s grinning, and she captures Trixie’s hand in hers and brings it to her mouth so she can kiss each of her knuckles individually.

Trixie lets her, made useless by the careful way Katya touches her and the wet heat of the tip of her tongue just darting out. When she turns Trixie’s hand over and grazes her teeth against the lines in her palm Trixie hums a tiny noise. Katya has a tattoo on her thigh of a hand with long dark nails and a flame cradled in the palm, which Trixie had been delighted to discover.

“Stop making out with my hand, you freak.”

Katya bites the meat at the base of her thumb for that, but she does let her go. Dolly sits between the two of them in the cab of the truck with most of her body in Katya’s lap, and she strokes the dog’s silky head for the whole drive. She doesn’t have to circle the truck for her superstitious ritual anymore, and Trixie isn’t sure whether that’s because she’s getting more comfortable with being in the car or because it’s so uncomfortably cold that she can’t bear it.

When they get to Trixie’s house Katya is out of the truck and heading for the coop before Trixie has even killed the engine. She sits in the car for a little longer to watch Katya, who has opened the door to let the chickens come clattering out and is on her knees in the snow to commune with them. She is so cute that Trixie has to knead two fingers against her sternum to quiet her silly, tender heart. The goats are bleating indignantly from the cowshed so Trixie goes to them first to let them out. Inside, she boils water on the stovetop to defrost the ice in the water trough and she stands at the sink to watch Katya from the kitchen window. She’s got two chickens on her thighs and a third on her shoulder, Faith, who is sticking her beak directly into Katya’s ear.

Trixie gives her as much time with the girls as she can before she has to come and collect their plastic drinker so she can clear the ice out of it. Katya gets up with Faith cradled in both arms now and the chicken lays her head against Katya’s chest and chirrups contentedly.

“Can I have a kiss?” Trixie says, unable to stop the whine from creeping into her voice. She has the handle of the feeder dangling from two gloved fingers and with her free hand she reaches for Katya’s elbow to try and pull her in. “Please. Please?”

“I’m very busy with my favourite girl right now, mama. You gotta wait your turn.”

Katya’s doing it on purpose, because she thinks it’s hilarious that Trixie gets so jealous. She’s told her that, when Trixie has been unable to shake her petulance, and she’s kissed the pout right off her mouth. It’s childish to need all of Katya’s attention all of the time, but Trixie can’t help herself. When she has it, when Katya’s red mouth cracks open on a wide grin at her dumb jokes and when she insists on always touching some part of Trixie, it makes her feel woozy with affection.

Trixie calls time when they both start shivering and drags Katya into the house with her by the elbow. Dolly is already inside, curled up into a tight, glossy knot on the couch and snoring loudly. Katya’s pants are soaked from the knees down with snow and Trixie sends her upstairs to find something to change into. While Katya’s gone, she starts pulling ingredients for pancakes.

They don’t get mornings together very often, because Katya has to open the store. Trixie wants to make the most of it, wants to romance Katya before the rest of the world is awake. She comes back down wearing an old pair of Trixie’s sweats that are so huge on her she’s had to roll the waistband over twice. They make her look tiny, and Trixie wraps both arms around her shoulders and just holds her until she gets impatient and squirms to be released.

It’s like having a small child in the kitchen with her. Katya keeps pilfering ingredients while Trixie’s trying to make up the pancake batter, and she darts these little glances at Trixie from the corner of her eye and looks so pleased with herself that Trixie can’t bear to do anything other than let her. She always adds salt to her batter to help reduce the bitterness of the dark chocolate, and she spills a little on the counter because Katya is singing Russian pop, at the top of her lungs and completely off-key, and she’s laughing more than she’s focusing. Before Trixie even gets a chance to sweep the salt away Katya snatches it up and tosses it behind herself over her left shoulder.

“Katya!”

“Sorry. I’m sorry. It’s a dumb superstition.”

Trixie sighs and presses the heel of her palm to her forehead for a second. “It’s not- I know that. That’s whatever. But it _goes_ _somewhere_. You can’t just throw it all over the floor.”

Katya sweeps the salt from the floor, and does the whole kitchen while she’s at it. When she’s done she comes to stand behind Trixie and wraps her arms around her waist, lays her cheek to Trixie’s shoulder blade. Trixie covers Katya’s hands in her own, clasped at her stomach, and knots their fingers together.

“I’m sorry,” Katya says again. Her voice is very small, and Trixie feels the press of Katya’s nose into her back like she’s hiding her face.

She turns in the circle of Katya’s arms and brushes her bangs back out of her eyes, arranges her hair against her shoulders. It’s rare that Trixie can just hold her, because Katya is spilling over with energy all the time and she’s not very good at stillness. She cherishes every opportunity, because she knows that it takes Katya real effort to be here in Trixie’s arms.

“Don’t be. I find your superstitions very charming.” Trixie kisses the corner of her mouth and lets herself linger, because Katya smells like the cold morning and like herself, underneath. “And I know you were there at the dawn of civilisation when most of them were created, so I can’t hold it against you.”

Katya shrieks a laugh at that. She tips her head back with it and balls her hands into fists, rests them at Trixie’s shoulders. “Respect your elders, you awful little brat. You villain.”

“Hey.” Trixie touches her thumb to the spot just below Katya’s jaw. “Your hickey’s gone.”

“I’m a fast healer.”

That does seem to be true, in the time that Trixie has known her at least. Last week she nicked herself while she was helping Trixie chop vegetables. Trixie left her holding her finger beneath the stream of cold water from the faucet, and by the time she got back with a box of Band-Aids Katya wasn’t bleeding anymore and she had a faint red line on the side of her finger.

“I guess I’m just gonna have to give you another one then, huh?”

Katya makes a disgusted noise and scrunches her face up. She seems to have hit her limit and she wriggles out of Trixie’s arms and hops up to sit on the countertop instead. She shunts over a couple of inches when Trixie shoves on her thigh and starts drumming her heels against the cabinet door below. Her bangs are annoying her again, she keeps blowing them out of her eyes and Trixie will have to trim them for her later. Katya’s hair grows faster than anybody Trixie has ever known, and she is absurdly jealous over it.

Somehow, in spite of all the distraction, she’s done with the pancake batter. Trixie has a heart shaped mould that she sets in place on the griddle and she pours some of the batter into it. It’s disgustingly saccharine — Bob bought it for her as a Valentine’s gift because she rejected all forms of sincerity — and she hasn’t ever used it before. Katya makes her want to be gentle, even though she knows she’s going to be teased for it.

“Oh my God, this is so gross. Trixie, do you _like_ me?”

Katya is looking at the pancake just beginning to brown rather than at her, but she’s smiling so wide that her whole face is creased up with it.

“No, I hate you. You’re so mean to me, all the time.”

Her pouting works. Katya spreads her knees and hooks her feet around Trixie’s hips, tugs on her so that she moves between Katya’s thighs. It’s peculiar to have Katya looking down at her but she’s kissing her before Trixie can think too much about it, one hand in her hair to angle her head just where she wants her.

She lets Katya kiss her until the pancake starts smoking and they break apart. Trixie plates it anyway, gives it to Katya with the jar of homemade apple butter from the refrigerator.

“It’s burned,” Katya pouts. “That’s a bad omen, Trixie.”

“If you don’t want it that’s fine, I’ll eat it.”

“No!” Katya yelps, and clutches her plate protectively against her stomach like she thinks Trixie’s going to take it right out of her hands. “You made it for me. I’m eating it.”

She sticks her finger into the jar of apple butter and holds it out for Trixie. It’s disgusting, because a lot of the things Katya finds acceptable are really not at all, but she parts her lips and licks Katya’s finger clean anyway.

The smell of pancakes lured Dolly into the kitchen and she’s lying on the linoleum and whining low in her throat, staring at Katya. She hops down from the countertop and goes right to the floor, kneeling in front of the dog and letting her lick apple butter from the same finger Trixie just had in her own mouth.

A little shiver of revulsion goes through her just watching that. It does mean that she can focus on her cooking, and she manages a stack of perfect pancakes before Katya comes back to bother her again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'd love to hear what you thought!


	7. seven.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> validation station, you ladies brighten my days and i'm so proud of all of you. and stutter, my love, i couldn't do it without you. i'm so grateful and so thrilled to know you.

“How could you do this to me?”

Trixie stays right where she is on the ground. The snow is soaking through the ass of her pants and getting inside of her boots so that her socks feel unpleasantly wet. Her face is red and everything keeps going blurry. She blinks to clear her vision again and a tear escapes her, slides hot down the salt-raw curve of her cheek.

“Honey, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.” Katya is standing over her, red scarf wound twice around her neck so that it obscures half of her face as well.

“You _hurt me_.” Trixie lets the wail bleed out into her voice a little bit. She’s got her fists balled up inside her gloves so that the empty fingers flop limply when she moves her hands. She’s not crying, not really. Her eyes are just watering because her face stings.

Katya kneels down next to her and tucks her hair back. The tips of her ears are pink with the cold and Trixie finds herself fixated on the right one, which is folded over into a little point. Katya calls it her pixie ear. She sighs when Trixie seeks it out with her teeth and lips and tongue, but she always lets her and it always makes a moan stutter out of her very quietly.

“Trixie, baby, it was an accident. I’m so sorry.”

Her face is white with horror and her hands are hovering over Trixie like she’s not sure she’s allowed to touch. It’s not fun anymore. Trixie shakes off the last of her snit and reaches for Katya, fists both hands in the lapels of her coat to haul her in close.

She lets out a little squeak of surprise as she goes and Trixie kisses the noise right from her mouth. She’s the one to deepen things, the one to touch her tongue to the seam of Katya’s lips. It’s not a comfortable position, on her ass on the snow covered ground and Katya balancing herself with a hand at her thigh. Katya’s mouth is hot and wet and lovely and Trixie wants to keep kissing her. Her whole body feels strung out with need, pulled taut.

“Mm, Trixie, wait.” Katya is the one to break the kiss. It doesn’t feel time to break it, and Trixie keens low in her throat. “Do you concede? Are you defeated?”

“You hit me in the _face_,” Trixie says, and then steals another kiss.

It’s her own fault. She’s the one who started it. Katya had been pottering around with the chickens, watching them fussing over the warm oatmeal that they get now that the cold is unending and pervasive. She is endlessly delighted by how much it confuses them and she loves to set the dish down and then stay with them for a while. Trixie leaves her to it, most times, and every now and then Katya will turn over her shoulder and grin at her about it.

Today, Trixie took advantage of Katya’s distraction and hit her right between the shoulder blades with a snowball. It made her jerk upright on a yelp, in time to see Trixie breaking away from the house and taking off at a run. She has a bench out in the backyard and she had hooked her arm around one of the posts that supports it and used the momentum to whip around and crouch down behind it for cover.

She had busied herself forming as many tightly compact balls in the snow as she could, peeking up over the back of the bench every so often. Katya had taken a minute to stop reeling. It gave Trixie time to raise up a little more and launch another snowball at her. It had landed perfectly and hit Katya square in the solar plexus. The shock of it had made her take a few stumbling steps backward.

“Trixie!” she had yelled, affronted, and immediately dropped to the ground to start forming an arsenal of her own.

She’d gotten distracted then and let herself have a moment to watch Katya, felt her heart do a slow turn in her chest. Trixie favoured quantity, wanted to have as many snowballs as possible, but Katya took a different tack. It worked out better for her. Her shots were accurate every time, where most of Trixie’s crumpled mid-flight and sprayed Katya with powdery snow rather than actually hitting her.

She knows Katya didn’t mean to hit her in the face. She was mostly just being dramatic and a bit of a brat when she let the force of it knock her onto her ass. It’s worth it for how gentle Katya is being with her now. She helps Trixie to her feet and keeps a tight hold of one of her hands. The other comes up to settle at the back of her neck and Katya’s freezing fingertips tuck inside the band of Trixie’s beanie.

“I’m sorry I hit you in the face. I know your face is very important to you.”

“My face is very important to _you_,” Trixie says back. “Where else are you gonna sit?”

Every time Katya kisses her, it feels a little like the first time. They’re comfortable together — Trixie knows exactly what Katya likes and what will get her to bite out a tiny moan — but she still can’t quite believe that they actually get to do this now. The leftover adrenaline from their snowball fight is making her a little aggressive. Trixie’s tongue seeks Katya’s, slicking into her mouth, and she grabs clumsily at her in her gloves.

Their kiss burns itself out naturally because they’re both shivering now that they’ve stopped moving. Katya’s cradling Trixie’s face in both hands and her fingers are freezing but her palms are warm and her breath is too, where it skims Trixie’s cheek. Snow has gathered along the tops of her shoulders and in her hair like static and it makes her ethereal and electric.

Trixie wants to bury her face in the warm creases at Katya’s neck. She can’t quite manage that, not with Katya’s enormous wool scarf in the way. Instead she wraps her arms around her and clings tight, their bodies aligned from shoulder to knee. Katya lets them have a few moments of hushed awe in which she only fidgets a tiny bit.

“You okay, mama?” she asks when Trixie lets her wriggle out of their hug.

Trixie doesn’t hurry into her answer. There’s a lot she still hasn’t said. She’s thinking it, all of the time. In the early mornings when she wakes up for just a moment and opens one eye to see Katya sitting up against the headboard with a novel against her thighs. In the evenings when Katya insists on helping Trixie make dinner, which mostly means snacking on the ingredients Trixie is trying to prep and kissing her when she gets grouchy about it. Sometimes Trixie opens her mouth, and then she remembers Katya telling her _I’m scared_ and she closes it again.

“Yeah. Happy.”

Katya makes a disgusted noise and screws her face up. She’s got one hand tucked into Trixie’s pocket and she wriggles it there to make her laugh.

“I think we should go inside.” She darts a glance just over Trixie’s shoulder and Trixie turns to look as well, sees Dolly’s dark head in the window and her eyes baleful on them. “I think your benevolent spirit is getting jealous.”

The dog hates the snow and absolutely refuses to go outside in it more than she has to. Whenever Trixie opens the back door for Dolly to use the bathroom she pitches a fit and whines and shivers for a good half hour afterward. If Katya’s there, she’ll gather Dolly up in her arms and rock her like an infant, muttering to her in Russian.

Trixie’s not jealous of her dog. That would be absurd.

They head for the back door stumbling and snow-drunk, clutching at one another like teenagers. Trixie almost trips over one of the chickens but Katya’s holding tight to her hand and she won’t let her fall down. At the back door, Trixie looks over her shoulder to see the crooked step of their twin footprints. Katya is already inside, so she lets herself have a tiny moment to smile to herself about it without being teased.

It’s nice to have somebody else in the house. They don’t always have to be on top of one another. It’s good to just exist in the same space and be peripherally aware of one another. Most evenings Trixie busies herself fixing them dinner and she likes knowing that Katya is right in the next room, reading or fussing over Dolly or sometimes doing yoga. Trixie will often leave whatever she’s cooking to simmer on the stovetop and go to find Katya, take the novel out of her hands and leave her thumb tucked inside to mark the page while she kisses her.

This afternoon she’s listening to music. Trixie doesn’t have a CD player. Katya keeps threatening to get her one, but for now she has the radio. Katya fiddles with it constantly, changing stations as soon as she gets bored with a song, which is usually immediately after the first chorus. There’s a stew in the crockpot, but it isn’t quite time to make the dropped dumplings just yet. She wipes down the countertops and puts the peelings from the vegetables into the little caddy she keeps for composting.

It isn’t snowing anymore, but the gunmetal sky is low over the earth and it could start again at any moment. Trixie is looking forward to their evening, lighting a fire and snuggling up on the couch. Katya can be coaxed into letting Trixie hold her if she feeds her something carbohydrate-rich and warm and then eats her out slowly. Once or twice she’s even fallen asleep with her head against Trixie’s shoulder or in her lap.

“Trixie, come look at this,” Katya calls from the living room.

Trixie can see her through the archway. She’s standing by the window with one hand up against the glass, her fingerprints leaving little smudges in the condensation. She’s taken all of her winter layers off and she has the bottom of her jeans tucked into her socks and her sweater pushed up past her elbows. Trixie’s chest is tight with how badly she wants to hold her, and how grateful she is that she gets to.

“Mm, just a minute,” she says back. There are a couple of dishes waiting in the sink that she wants to tackle before she lets herself get lost in Katya for the rest of the day.

“_Trixie_!”

The panic in Katya’s voice makes her head snap up. Katya has whipped around to look at her and her face is pale and slack like a death mask. Before Trixie can get her mouth open to ask what’s wrong, Katya rushes right past her into the mudroom and steps hastily into her galoshes. She’s frantic in a way Trixie hasn’t ever seen before and it makes her nauseated right down into the pit of her stomach.

“What is it, babe?”

“It’s Cash. Oh God. It’s Cash.”

Trixie can hear him, now.

The goats are noisy a lot of the time. She’s gotten used to their irate bleating whenever they encounter something that displeases them, which seems to be once every half a minute or so. They’re often cantankerous towards each other and Trixie mostly tunes out the loud bleats that she can hear all the way inside the house whenever they butt heads.

This isn’t like that. It’s a thin, reedy, sustained note of panic that cuts right through the core of Trixie and upwards so she feels it into her teeth. She’s cleaved in two by it. Trixie pulls her boots on as quickly as she can over her thick wool socks and hurries outside in them, unlaced.

Katya has beat her to Cash and she’s on her knees in the snow next to him. He’s lying sprawled on his side like a rag doll dropped from a great height and his foreleg is bent at an unnatural angle. Trixie presses the back of her hand to her mouth and takes a couple of ragged breaths in through her nose.

The goat is writhing on the cold ground, scrabbling to try and get up, but Katya holds him in place with the flat of her palm. With her other hand she touches her fingers very lightly to Cash’s leg and he cries out and rears against her.

“Oh my God. What happened?” There’s no response and Trixie closes the distance in a couple of strides and knuckles the back of Katya’s head to get her attention. “Katya. What happened?”

She doesn’t look up at Trixie. Her eyes are roaming all over Cash and her hands too, busying at him like there’s something she can do. “He was climbing on the truck again, and he got onto the roof. I guess it was too icy, I don’t _know_-”

They’re both wailing now, Katya and the goat. Trixie kneels down too and Cash lolls his head towards her. The whites of his eyes are showing and his nostrils are flared with his fast breathing. Trixie can’t stand to see him hurting. She bows over him like that can shield him, like the warmth of her body over his will heal him.

“He slipped?”

“He slipped, he _fell_.” Katya has gotten herself together a little bit and she lifts her head to meet Trixie’s eyes.

“I don’t know what to do.” Trixie’s voice comes out in pieces. She can smell adrenaline and she swipes uselessly at her cheeks with the pads of her fingers. A few tears drop onto Cash’s flank. “Katya, I don’t know what to do. Tell me what to do.”

“Stay right here with him, honey. It’ll comfort him to have you close.”

Katya disappears inside the house. When Trixie lifts her head to watch her go she sees Guthrie a couple of feet away, watching. His head is low and he’s toeing anxiously at the frozen ground. Cash is still mewling and Trixie strokes his head over and over, murmuring softly to him.

Katya comes back with a sheet from the linen closet which she unfolds, and Trixie helps her ease it beneath Cash as carefully as they can. The snow helps to cushion him a bit, but he still cries out when they have to bring the sheet beneath his broken leg. Katya’s got the keys to the truck as well and she unlocks it. It’s a graceless, cruel production to get Cash into the cab of the truck.

In the driver’s seat Trixie swipes at her eyes with the sleeves of her sweater. There isn’t really room for the three of them on the bench seat, so Katya’s got Cash’s back legs in her lap. She’s twisted to lean over him and she’s muttering something that Trixie can’t really hear. She gets like this sometimes, with all of the animals. Her voice is melodious and whatever she’s reciting calms them immediately. More than once, Trixie has fallen asleep on the couch with Katya at her feet whispering to the dog.

“Do you know a vet? I don’t have one here yet, I don’t-”

“Let’s go to my house.”

Katya’s voice has an edge to it that Trixie hasn’t ever heard before. She looks at her, at the set of her jaw and the two little creases between her brows, and she knows better than to argue. Trixie drives as smoothly as she possibly can, but every time they go over a bump or a pothole in the back roads Cash whines. His breathing is easing with Katya’s continued muttering and the gentle brush of both of her hands along his flank and his head.

At the house she jumps out before Trixie has even cut the engine. It’s even worse getting Cash back out of the truck and up the porch steps. He isn’t heavy, but even doing their best not to jostle him he’s writhing in agony by the time they make it inside. Katya’s walking backwards and she doesn’t have to turn over her shoulder, makes a clear path through to the kitchen without smacking into the wall or tripping over anything.

Trixie feels foggy and disoriented with panic. She lets Katya tell her what to do and she sits on the floor with Cash’s head in her lap while Katya rummages around in the cabinets. Trixie can’t lift her eyes from the goat to see what Katya’s gathering, so it startles her when she kneels down next to her on the kitchen floor.

She’s got a mortar and pestle filled with herbs and a couple of things Trixie doesn’t recognise at all, and a roll of Ace bandage. Katya starts grinding everything into a paste. She has her eyes closed and she’s muttering again, still. Once it’s done, she uses her fingers to apply it in a thick layer over Cash’s leg. It’s purplish-green and smells a little like chamomile. There’s no break in the skin. Trixie can’t understand how an ointment is going to help.

“What are you doing? He needs to see a vet. _Katya_.”

Trixie watches Katya wind the bandage around and around Cash’s leg. He’s nosing curiously at it, trying to lick the salve, and she gently nudges his face away over and over until she’s got the bandage secured. His breathing is starting to even out in the warmth of Katya’s kitchen, but his eyes are still wide and darting.

“It needs ten minutes or so like that. You want tea?”

“I don’t- what’s happening right now?” Trixie presses the heel of her palm to her forehead. There’s a headache blooming in a livid burst behind her left eye socket. Katya is fussing with the kettle, and all of Trixie’s leftover adrenaline comes tumbling out. “Katya, stop ignoring me. What are you doing?”

Katya sets the kettle on the burner to boil. Her shoulders are up around her ears. Trixie watches her take a steadying breath, another, and then she turns to look at her. There’s a little smudge of black eyeliner beneath her eye and the lines of her lipstick are blown out and cracking from kissing Trixie all morning in the snow.

“You remember what Tom said to you the first day you met me?”

They’ve talked about it a little. Trixie is made brave by the darkness, and most nights she lies on her back with Katya tucked against her side in a haphazard tangle of limbs, and she spills all of her secrets. She’s talked about her life before she was here, in Wisconsin and in Los Angeles. She’s talked about longing and loneliness, told Katya how glad she is to have her. Warmed her cold fingers against Katya’s stomach.

“Yes I remember. I don’t have dementia. I’m not you.”

It’s a weak joke, and she doesn’t get a laugh. Instead, Katya gives her a tiny, tiny nod. “It’s real, Trix. It’s true.”

“Oh my God, shut up,” Trixie says. She’s still on the floor with Cash and she’s suddenly disoriented by the jarring height discrepancy. Trixie gets to her feet and her knees click as she straightens. “That’s not funny. Shut up.”

“It’s not supposed to be funny. I wouldn’t joke about this. Not with you.”

“No.” Trixie shakes her head to try and dispel the ringing in her ears. Her pulse is pounding everywhere, all over. She feels overripe, like her skin is going to split open at her wrists and the base of her throat and the insides of her elbows. “No you’re not.”

Katya gives her a somber smile. She’s holding her hands in front of herself and her fingers are knotted together. “I am. Well, I’m a znakharka, technically. A folk healer.”

“Katya, _stop it_. It’s not cute.”

Instead of saying anything else, Katya leans forward over the island. She has a collection of pillar candles in the middle. Each one is a different colour and they drip their wax onto an assortment of peculiar dishes. Katya blows out one long, steady breath and a flame stutters to life at each of the five wicks. She raises her eyes to Trixie, then. The sun seems to have set very suddenly and the darkness up against the windows is making her claustrophobic. At her feet, Cash lets out a little bleat.

“Please stop,” Trixie says. She’s backed herself up against the cabinets without realising it and the edge of the countertop is pressing uncomfortably against the base of her spine.

The kettle starts whistling and Katya gets out two cups and a pot. She brews loose leaf, always, and she pours the hot water through the metal infuser. Trixie has her hands either side of her hips, clutching at the counter to stay standing. She feels pinned in place and stripped bare. Katya gives the tea some time to steep and then pours it into their cups. She adds a splash of milk to Trixie’s tea and sets a dainty little spoon inside. It starts stirring around and around the circumference of the cup, and when Katya lifts her hands it continues on by itself.

“Katya, please, stop it. Please.” She’s on the edge of tears, and it feels like she’s been crying all day and couldn’t possibly have anything left, but she does.

Katya folds her hands together again neatly. The spoon clatters loudly against the side of the cup and Trixie flinches badly and bites down hard on the side of her tongue. All of the candles go out at once. There are deep swathes of shadow beneath Katya’s eyes and in the hollows of her cheeks. She’s beautiful, of course, but it’s like Trixie’s seeing her for the first time all over again.

“I’m so sorry,” Katya whispers.

“You lied to me.”

Trixie is humiliated by the tremble in her voice. There’s a hot iron taste in her mouth that won’t go away no matter how many times she swallows roughly. The solid edge of the countertop is still pressing hard into her lumbar spine but it’s a good pain, a grounding pain. Her breath is coming in these tight little gasps so that she doesn’t cry.

“I didn’t lie.” Katya comes around the counter. There’s a tiny squeak, like a small and petrified animal, and Trixie realises with a rush of cold shame that it was her. Katya stops where she stands and shows Trixie her palms. “I’ve never lied to you, honey. I just. . .I didn’t tell you the whole truth.”

“That’s the same thing!”

The hurt is reworking itself. Trixie feels it pouring outward from the centre of her chest, livid-hot so that it makes her ball her hands into tight fists. She keeps trying over and over to take a centering breath but each one comes out wetter and more shallow than the last. Katya is watching her, unmoving. It isn’t like she’s spooked or caught in a snare. She is perfectly calm; it’s Trixie who feels ready to gnaw off her own foot.

“You let me walk around town defending you. You let me- oh my God. I _yelled_ at people for you. You let everyone laugh at me behind my back.”

Katya takes another tentative step towards Trixie. Their two cups of tea are left immediately abandoned on the kitchen island. Since they first met, Trixie has been awestruck over and over by how tiny Katya often seems. She’s spent as much time holding her as Katya will let her have. Now, it seems calculated. Like Katya has set herself up to seem vulnerable, when all along it’s Trixie who has been in danger.

“No one’s been laughing at you.”

“Of course they have.” Trixie is trying very hard not to yell. She has lost many arguments in her life because as soon as she lets her anger sweep through her she starts crying. She can’t hold her own with tears coursing down her ruddy cheeks and dripping from her chin. “I’m the only fucking idiot in this whole town who couldn’t see you for what you are.”

Katya’s crying now too. Even like this, she’s lovely. The tip of her nose is pink and her eyes are shiny and more grey than usual. She’s stopped trying to approach Trixie and they’re standing facing one another, Trixie backed against the cabinets and Katya leaning on the island.

“I’m sorry, honey. I’m so sorry.”

Cash is on the ground between them. He lets out a little bleat and Trixie looks down to see him getting slowly to his feet. He babies his hurt leg, cautious with his weight, but as soon as he tries to stand properly he realises that it isn’t hurting anymore. His ears swivel to point forwards and he takes a few careful steps. He nudges his head into Katya’s thigh and she reaches down blindly to pet him, her eyes still on Trixie.

Katya crouches to unwind the bandage from Cash’s leg. She can barely hold him still while she does, because curiosity at being in a new place is winning out now that his pain is gone. As soon as Katya lets him go he careens off around the other side of the island to nose at every unfamiliar smell in the kitchen.

“He’s- you. . .how did you do that.”

“It’s mostly about intention.” Katya is gnawing anxiously on her bottom lip. She’s folded the two ends of the bandage in on themselves so the salve doesn’t make a mess but she seems reluctant to throw it in the garbage. “A lot of it is herbology, connecting with the earth, all that. It’s hard to explain. I know it’s a lot to take in.”

“You made a fool of me.”

Katya’s face goes slack and her mouth opens. She’s still crying a little but it doesn’t seem like she’s even aware of it. She keeps lifting her hands like she wants to reach out to Trixie and then letting them drop back to her sides again. Sick satisfaction twists in Trixie’s stomach to see her looking so small and so afraid.

“I didn’t mean to.” Katya is only getting quieter the more Trixie lets herself unravel. Her voice is coloured by intimacy and it reminds Trixie of middle of the night tenderness, of leaning in close to share a secret. “That’s not what I wanted.”

“What _did_ you want?”

It hits Trixie just like that.

Since the first time they met, she’s been so eager to be close to Katya. In spite of her better judgement and her past hurts. Accusations crowd inside her mouth, jostling so that she can’t focus in on just one. Her knees buckle and she has to hold herself up with both hands at the countertop behind her. The movement makes the black tourmaline in her pocket knock against her thigh.

She’s been carrying it with her every day since Katya gave it to her. She is very suddenly hollowed out with humiliation. Shame travels down the centre of her chest and cleaves her in two to let Katya look. It’s always been like that with them, she’s always felt like Katya has seen the pink-raw insides of her, but this is different.

Trixie is ensnared by the fact that she can’t accuse Katya of casting a love spell on her. Not without admitting that she loves her. She is _in love with her_, hopelessly, still. The indignity of the whole situation has a fresh flood of hot tears spilling over her cheeks. Her face feels itchy with saltwater and she’s getting a dehydration headache.

She thinks about Katya holding Trixie’s hands in hers and making heat bloom all over. Katya’s mouth between Trixie’s thighs and the lights in the whole house stuttering out at the first wet, delicious contact. How foolish she’s been. Over and over, she’s written things off as Katya’s marvellous eccentricity.

Opposite her, Katya rakes a rough hand through her hair. It makes her bangs stick up from her forehead. “I wanted you. I wanted you so much that I didn’t know what to do with myself.”

It’s too much. She can’t keep it back.

“You cast a love spell on me.”

“No, Trixie,” Katya says very gently, and shakes her head. “You just like me.”

“So you’ve never used magic on me?”

Trixie comes unstuck, quite suddenly, from the cabinets. She stalks away from Katya and runs both hands through her hair, swipes uselessly at her cheeks. She’s glad to turn away, even though Katya has already seen how much she’s hurting.

Cash has opened the garbage can with his nose and is rummaging through it, pulling things out to scatter all over the kitchen. Katya probably has a spell for that, so Trixie leaves him to it.

“Not on purpose.” Katya sounds small and exhausted. Trixie doesn’t want to turn to look at her, but she can see her reflected in the window over the sink. She pinches the bridge of her nose in two fingers. “Sometimes it just happens. When I care about someone. I’m a healer, honey. I can’t watch you hurt.”

“You’ve _made_ me hurt.” Trixie whips around to look at her again. Her voice is shuddering like she’s coming down from her crying jag, but she doesn’t feel done yet. “_You_ hurt me.”

“Trixie. Can you come here. Please.” She doesn’t move, can’t seem to make herself close the distance between them. “Okay. That’s okay.”

“I don’t understand why you don’t trust me.”

Katya makes a high-pitched noise of distress, wet with grief. “I do trust you. I do. Things were just so good with us. I was afraid to ruin it.”

“Well you have anyway.” It feels good to be unkind. It feels like vindication to watch Katya’s face twist with every new truth Trixie lays out in front of her. There’s an intolerable churning in the pit of Trixie’s stomach that won’t go away no matter how many steadying breaths she takes. “I can’t- I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be with you right now.”

Trixie reaches for the first thing she sees, an apple from the bowl on the island, and holds it out to show Cash. It draws his attention immediately away from his foraging and he follows her towards the door. It’s like nothing happened, and she can’t help wondering if she would have ever found out the truth if Cash hadn’t gotten hurt.

“Trixie, please.”

Katya’s pitiful voice stops her in the threshold. She doesn’t turn around, can’t bear the sight of her anymore, but she also doesn’t move. Cash is nosing at Trixie’s fist, trying to get a bite of the apple she’s holding.

“There’s a circle around the moon tonight. That’s a sign of trouble not far ahead.”

It isn’t what Trixie was expecting. She huffs a tiny breath of laughter, in spite of herself. The trouble is already here; they’re in it. She doesn’t want to entertain the thought of what could be worse than this. Katya gives her space to retort but Trixie is all out of words now. She’s exhausted suddenly, and has to put her empty hand against the doorframe so she doesn’t topple.

“Sometimes I. . .I feel like I have a kind of hole, inside. Like an emptiness that burns. I’m pretty sure if you lifted my heart to your ear, you could probably hear the ocean. Isn’t that nuts? That’s pretty nuts.”

Trixie closes her eyes. It doesn’t stop two round, hot tears from escaping. She knows it isn’t true. Night after night, she has pillowed her cheek against Katya’s chest and closed her eyes to listen. She’s fallen asleep more than once to the quiet, insistent rhythm of Katya’s heartbeat.

“I’ve had this dream of being whole. Of not going to sleep each night, wanting.” Katya makes a little noise as if she’s trying to clear her throat. “I dreamed of a love that even time would lie down and be still for.”

Trixie bites down on her tongue until the taste of iron floods her mouth. She wants to wail, wants to say that she loves her, she _loves_ her, and Katya turned it back around into _like_. All the fight has gone out of her. Her pulse is loud in her ears, blood drawing out of her extremities and making them numb and tingly.

“I just want someone to love me. I want to be seen. Maybe I already had my happiness. I don’t know.” Trixie’s arms twitch, but she doesn’t move. She’s had a lot of practice ignoring the ache to hold Katya that lives in her stomach. “Still sometimes when the wind is warm or the crickets sing-”

“You’re running off at the mouth again.” Trixie can’t — won’t — turn and look at her. Katya makes a pitiful noise, loud in the stillness of the kitchen. “You don’t make any sense when you’re like this. You don’t- I can’t understand you.”

Outside, Trixie encourages Cash into the truck with the apple in her hand. The whole time, she can feel Katya watching her. She knows better than to come outside and try to help. Trixie feels a scream swelling at the base of her throat. It takes her a couple of tries to get the engine started and frustration makes her grip the wheel too tight, makes her grit her teeth until her jaw pops.

On the drive she has to pull over at the side of the street to throw up. When it’s over, when she’s finished, she swipes at her mouth with the back of her hand. Her eyes are watering again and the acid taste, the smell, is making her heave, but it’s good. It feels good to expunge something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'd love to know what you thought!


	8. eight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks as always to validation station for cheering me on, and stutter for looking at this over and over again and being gentle and kind each time.

The nearest bar is a town over but Trixie keeps driving until she gets to the next town after that. The chance that she’ll see somebody she knows is much too high. Everybody in the whole town has been laughing at her behind her back, and if she has to face them right now she will start screaming. She feels it building at the base of her throat, and if she lets it out she doesn’t know how she’d ever stop.

Since she left Los Angeles, she’s only gotten drunk that one time in Katya’s kitchen. She’s out of the habit, now. Katya doesn’t drink, and Trixie doesn’t like to drink in front of her. She’s had the occasional glass of wine with dinner, but even that she hasn’t indulged in since they-

Well. Since they what?

Trixie hasn’t ever been courageous enough to put words to it, to ask Katya to commit to a label. She’s been pretending that she’s the sort of casual, low-maintenance person who doesn’t need to use words like _relationship_ and _girlfriend_, but she isn’t. In her head, she’s been thinking of Katya that way, but for all she knows Katya doesn’t see her like that. For all she knows, Katya has a whole string of dumb, impressionable women bobbing along behind her like buoys on a line.

Trixie settles herself on a stool and gets a concerned tilt of the head from the bartender. Her hair is wet. Once she got Cash settled in the cowshed with his brother and spent a long time kneeling in the hay petting Guthrie’s nervous head, she took a shower.

She brushed and flossed and swilled mouthwash twice. Her mouth still tastes artificial, like mint, and she keeps working her tongue around her teeth. Trixie asks the bartender for his recommendation and orders that. When it comes it’s some kind of cocktail that’s pink and way too sweet, and it tastes awful in her toothpaste mouth, but she drinks half of it down without pausing for breath.

Her stomach is empty. On the stove the crockpot had burned dry. She’d come in the mudroom door and smelled it right away. It’s supposed to be foolproof, and she has a fucking Michelin star. Trixie had pressed the heel of her palm to her forehead and allowed herself to bend double for just a minute. Dolly had been looking for her dinner, hanging her head over her empty dish and whining insistently. Trixie fed her, turned off the crockpot, dumped her whole ruined dinner into the sink.

She sucks down the rest of the cocktail until she hits ice and her straw makes that awful, dry sucking noise. The alcohol is beginning to hit her now and she takes her first deep breath in hours, lets it all out in one long shuddering exhale.

The bartender has already prepped a second drink for her without her asking and he slides it wordlessly along the counter to her. After her shower she looked at herself in the mirror over the sink for a long time; she knows it’s bad. Her face is swollen and pink, her eyes glassy.

All of the Verbena products that Katya’s ever given her — the ones from that very first time they met and the things she’s tucked into Trixie’s coat pockets for her to find later — had littered the countertop. Trixie swept them all off into the wastebasket.

Katya certainly has a cabinet full of potions that would make her feel better. Now that she’s thinking about it, she’s sure every product Katya has ever given her has been imbued with a little magic. She could probably just press her hands to Trixie’s raw cheeks and think very hard about it and make the redness and the swelling disappear. The indignity of that, the shame of the imbalance between them, brings a fresh rush of hot tears. She keeps thinking she’s cried herself out and then her breath shudders in her chest and another wave hits her.

Being alone in the house had unsettled her. She’s let Katya in to her life, the tiny world she was inhabiting all by herself, and now the solitude she used to crave just makes her skin prickle. Sitting by herself at the bar is not that much better, but the alcohol is helping.

Mortification still burns in the pit of her stomach. Everyone in the whole town has been looking at her with pity, and Katya most of all. Trixie circles her finger around and around the rim of her glass. She used to be able to make it sing, but it’s been a while since she’s tried it and all she can manage is an unpleasant squeak.

“Can I get a sidecar, and a glass of water for her? Thanks, Will.”

Trixie turns to see Violet, the femme fatale from the grocery store, arranging herself delicately on the stool next to Trixie’s. Her hair is down from its ponytail and pinned up at the front in two victory rolls that accentuate the taut pull of her face, her sharp cheekbones and the V of her cupid’s bow.

Out of her uniform polo, Violet’s waist is waspish to a degree that makes Trixie nervous for her. Sitting beside her at the bar, even two towns over, is making Trixie feel pudgy and too big for her skin. The first time the two of them met, Trixie had been unmoored by her feelings for Katya and the wet ends of her hair had dripped onto the floor of the grocery store. Now her hair is wet again, and there’s a chasm in her chest. Trixie works the knuckles of two fingers against her breastbone and doesn’t meet Violet’s eyes.

“Thank you for calling Betty a hateful bitch. She fucking _is_.”

It seems a peculiar way to open the conversation. Violet accepts the champagne saucer from the bartender and holds it delicately by the stem. She takes a careful sip, somehow managing not to slurp or get the sugar from the rim of the glass stuck to her lipstick. Trixie feels like she’s encountered an apparition and has to blink a couple of times to shake it off.

She’s annoyed to be babied, but she drinks a little of her water anyway. She feels it hit her stomach. It’s so empty that it’s aching, clenched like a fist and drawing the rest of her in tight. Another wave of nausea crests up and she breathes slowly through it. She really doesn’t want to get sick again. Not in front of Violet.

Violet sets her glass down, carefully so as not to spill it, and folds her hands neatly in her lap. It makes Trixie nervous, and when she’s nervous she talks.

“You’re the only one who doesn’t hate Katya.”

It gets a laugh out of Violet. Like every other time, it’s startling. It’s like she suddenly remembers that she’s a three-dimensional person and not an art installation and she tips her head back, her mouth open wide.

“They don’t like, _hate_ her. They’re afraid of her.”

There’s a bruise blooming furiously purple at the base of Trixie’s spine, from pressing herself against the cabinets as Katya approached her. It hurts when she leans on the back of the barstool. “For good fucking reason, don’t you think?”

“Are you scared of her, Trixie?” Violet arches one perfectly carved brow.

That’s the worst part. It’s the most humiliating part. Trixie doesn’t care about the magic. She’s not upset that Katya is a witch, and she’s not afraid of her. She was ready to stand by her when there was a chance she might have killed somebody. This isn’t worse than that.

“No. I guess not.”

Violet takes another sophisticated sip of her drink. She doesn’t put it down this time, instead gesturing at Trixie with the glass. “That’s what I thought, you bitch.”

They don’t know each other well. Trixie’s seen Violet around town a few times, and she came in to Verbena once while Trixie was there, but this is the first time they’ve been alone together. It isn’t like her, to be so loquacious with somebody she barely knows, but the alcohol and the ache in her chest have left her vulnerable.

“I never had enough information to be scared. I didn’t know I was supposed to be. She didn’t even give me the courtesy of letting me know that that should cross my mind.”

“Wait, what?” Violet sets her glass down, and this time a little of her drink does slosh over the rim and onto the countertop. “What do you mean you didn’t know? Oh my God. Oh my _God_. You only just found out? Bitch, I’m dead! That’s like, so major.”

Violet’s voice is loud enough that a few people nearby have turned to look, and Trixie feels the insistent bloom of embarrassment in her pink cheeks. It’s not busy enough tonight that she’s worried about it, but she’d prefer not to be overheard.

“I’m the only person who didn’t know, apparently,” she mutters.

“Well _yeah_, you dumb bitch. We’ve all known her for like, her whole life. It’s whatever. Like, we’ve all seen it for ourselves. You _haven’t_? Not even when you’ve been fu-” Trixie’s cheeks flame and she glances down at her lap. “Okay. Damn.”

Violet snags the bartender down again and asks him for a couple bags of chips. They seem to know each other, because he questions her about her dog — Trixie didn’t even know she has one — and she asks after his wife. Trixie sits sullenly like a chastised child and works on her glass of water.

She doesn’t really feel like eating, but Violet opens both bags down the middle and sets them on the counter between the two of them. A wave of longing for Katya surges up from the pit of Trixie’s stomach so suddenly that it takes her by surprise and she bites the inside of her cheek.

“It’s different with you two. You shop at her store. You defend her in public.”

“I fucked her,” Violet says calmly.

Trixie’s water goes down the wrong way and she chokes a little bit. It’s very undignified. The spluttering hack of her lungs would be embarrassing if she had any energy left for that. Violet lets her cough it out, wordlessly hands her a couple of paper napkins. When it’s over, she shifts to cross her legs at the opposite ankle. Trixie looks at her long nails, her tiny waist, the way her hair moves in one glossy sheet when she moves her head.

“A couple of times,” Violet gives Trixie the most disinterested, apathetic shrug. “It was no big deal.”

“You- when was this?”

Violet rolls her eyes and chews delicately on a couple of chips. The wait is excruciating. Trixie picks at her nail beds, bites the swollen inside of her cheek. Obviously, there’s a lot she doesn’t know about Katya, but she doesn’t want to believe that she would actually. . .it seems impossible.

“She didn’t like, cheat on you, you dumb whore.” Relief drops heavily over Trixie so that her shoulders sag. “It was before she was even married. We were both. . .figuring some things out. You know what I mean?”

“Did you date?” Violet levels her with a look. “Right. Sure. I just- you defended her.”

“Trixie, I’m a lesbian.”

Hearing it said so plainly sends a small thrill through Trixie, even though it isn’t the first time she’s heard it. She’s said it herself, lots of times to lots of people, but it’s different here. Violet seems entirely unbothered, and Will the bartender is _right there_ but he doesn’t even look up.

“You think I don’t like, understand having a secret? You think I don’t get what it would be like to be an- to be an outcast?” She waves one hand flippantly. Trixie keeps getting stuck on those nails, dark red and shiny and filed into stiletto points.

“Oh please, look at yourself,” Trixie scoffs. “You’d never be an outcast, you femme fucking bitch.”

Violet’s eyes widen and she tilts her head. It makes one perfect curl tip forward over her shoulder. “Oh?”

“Don’t pretend like you don’t know. I saw you checking yourself out in the napkin holder, you whore.”

That gets a laugh, Violet’s mouth open wide again. Trixie sees the pink dart of her tongue against her white teeth and it makes her think of Katya, because everything makes her think of Katya. Violet shifts in her stool and crosses her legs at the knee so the toe of her absurd heel just barely brushes Trixie’s shin.

“No, I know I’m everything. Mama, please. How could I not. It’s just. . .interesting to hear that you think that.” Violet reaches out and rests her hand at Trixie’s forearm. Her eyes are even more sultry than usual so that they’re hardly even open.

“I’m sorry, what’s this?”

“Do you maybe want to work through your frustration?”

Trixie screeches, can’t help herself, and snatches her arm out from underneath Violet’s grip. She shunts her barstool backwards for good measure, to put an extra inch or two of space between them. “No! Oh my God! It’s just a compliment, it doesn’t mean that I want to fuck you. You lunatic.”

“You think I’m hot but you don’t want to fuck me?” It seems to dawn on Violet quite slowly. Trixie finishes the last of her water, traces her fingertip around and around in the salt left on the foil of the chip bag. “Oh! Ohhhh. You’re like, really in love with her aren’t you?”

“It fucking _sucks_,” Trixie says, and is horrified to feel the burn of tears again. Now that she’s rehydrated a fresh wave is threatening and giving her headache.

Violet doesn’t seem at all shaken at being shot down by Trixie. She can’t imagine what that must be like. Trixie’s pretty confident; the descriptors attached to her throughout the years have run the gamut from self-assured to arrogant bitch. Violet is a different creature entirely.

“Well yeah, you dumb bitch. That’s like, what love is _like_.” Trixie drops her head into her hands. “It makes your heart race. It turns the world upside down. Whatever. But if you’re not careful, if you don’t like, keep your eyes on something still, you can lose your balance. Know what I mean?”

“Yes. Yeah,” she mutters without lifting her head to look at Violet.

A cool, bony hand comes to rest at Trixie’s shoulder. It makes her flinch in spite of herself. She has only been touched by Katya for such a long time. She is only interested in being touched by Katya, even now. It’s a peculiar thing: she wants Katya to be here, to be the one comforting her, but she’s the reason that Trixie is hurting in the first place. The cognitive dissonance is making her feel a bit untethered to reality, like at any moment she could float up to the ceiling.

“It’s like, you can’t see what’s happening to the people around you. You can’t see that you’re about to fall.”

Trixie straightens up, then. Her forehead feels hot. “You think I didn’t notice the witch in my bed because I’m such a dumb lovesick idiot?”

“Girl, I get it. I know what it’s like. She’s pretty captivating.” Violet’s grinning now. She drains the last of her sidecar and nudges her empty glass over towards the bartender.

“It’s so embarrassing.” Trixie pinches the bridge of her nose hard. It doesn’t really help to stave off her headache, but it does give her an excuse not to have to look at Violet for just a moment.

Clearly, she’s a regular here. Will has poured out a soda for her without needing to be asked, and he offers one to Trixie as well. She declines, because she really needs to eat something more substantial than half a bag of chips before she drinks anything else at all.

“Don’t be embarrassed.” Violet presses her lips together and rakes her eyes over Trixie very slowly. “Not about that, anyway. This wet hair, mama.”

“Fuck off.”

Violet grins at Trixie around her straw. It’s humid in the bar with body heat and alcohol and Trixie’s hair is frizzing as it dries, but Violet is still sleek and shiny. It’s like she’s been encased in resin or vacuum sealed.

“She told me that she hoped she would never fall in love. That she used to whisper it to herself when she was a little kid. Sitting at the top of the stairs watching her aunts helping people with potions and all that shit, I don’t know. Isn’t that the saddest thing you’ve ever heard?”

“When we first met, you said something about a curse.”

“Oh, yeah. People say that there’s like a curse on her family. That any man she loves is destined to die. It’s just because her parents died and her aunts were spinsters and then when Michael died. . .people are gossipy and bored and fucking dumb. That’s all it is, Trixie.”

“Yeah, but if the magic is real-”

“Even if there is a curse,” Violet cuts in and lifts one hand. She has a gold ring just above the knuckle of her middle finger, and a red indentation in her pointer finger. “It’s on men. I don’t think you should worry about that. You’re not gonna die.”

“Oh, I’m not worried. You said the curse is on the people that she loves, right? I’m safe.”

Violet very suddenly loses all of her decorum and honks out a laugh. Both hands fly up to her hair and she skims her fingers delicately against the tight pin curls like she’s worried they might have come loose with that outburst.

“Trixie, you dumb fucking bitch. She’s head over heels for you. Sometimes when I’m working nights she comes into the store and just sits at my register and like, talks and talks and talks about you.”

“She does?”

They spend most of their nights together. There have been a few times when Katya has needed to be up extra early to accept a delivery, or Trixie has had a moment of claustrophobia, and they’ve spent an evening apart. She’s wondered, those times, what Katya’s doing while Trixie soaks in the bathtub with the radio turned down low.

“_Yes_.” Violet sighs. There’s a tiny smudge of dark eyeliner just below her left eye. “God. I know more about the two of you and your relationship than I ever needed to.”

Trixie clears her throat. She’s spent the whole day feeling foolish and chastised, and a small childish creature in the pit of her stomach wants to go home and pull the sheets over her head.

“I didn’t know that.”

“She’s not so great with the emotional honesty stuff. Not since Michael. It’s hard for her to like, open up or whatever.”

Violet has finished her soda and she shunts the empty glass down the bar towards Will. She declines the offer of another and folds her hands neatly together in her lap again. She meets Trixie’s eyes, insists upon it, but hers are warm and kind.

“But I know she cares about you a whole lot. Her face lights up when someone even mentions you, it’s disgusting.”

Trixie has chewed on the inside of her cheek so much that it’s raw and swollen. She probes at the sore spot with the tip of her tongue.

“I thought she was. . .” There are things she hasn’t gotten the chance to say yet. And even though she so desperately wants to speak them into existence, Katya deserves to be the first person to hear it. Not Violet. “I care about her so much. I just don’t understand why she couldn’t trust me with this. _I_ trust _her_. I trusted her.”

Violet slides off her barstool in one fluid motion like water poured from a tall glass. She holds out her hand to Trixie, and when she doesn’t take it she clicks her tongue and grabs Trixie by the wrist to haul her to her feet.

“Come on. I’ll drive you home.”

“My car-”

Violet puts a couple of folded bills down on the bar and calls out a goodbye to Will. Now that she’s on her feet Trixie is a bit woozy and she’s glad for Violet’s arm hooked through hers.

“I’ll bring you back in the morning to get it. You look like a fucking nightmare, mama. Let’s go.”

It’s kind of nice to be on autopilot for a little bit. The ground rushes up to meet Trixie with each step that she takes and she clings to Violet, allowing herself to be babied. She’s not entirely cooperative when Violet tries to get her into the passenger seat. When the door is closed she slumps against it, her cheek pressed to the cold of the window. The engine makes the whole car vibrate and Trixie feels it into the roots of her teeth. Whenever they hit an uneven patch of road she’s jostled, her head lolling back and forth.

She doses off a little bit. The cold of the car is sobering her up, but she still feels pleasantly outside of herself. Violet doesn’t play any music or the radio and the silence makes it difficult to tell how much time is passing. She cuts the engine, and the sudden cessation of movement makes Trixie’s eyes open. She grunts and immediately closes them again, covers them with a hand for good measure.

“Nuh-uh. No. I wanna go home, Violet.”

“You can’t like, ignore her. Be a grownup. Tell her what you told me.”

Trixie huffs a sigh and peels one eye open. “That I think you’re hot?”

“_No_, you rotted bitch!” Violet is uncomfortably loud in the intimate confines of the car. “That you care about her. That you _love_ her.”

“I did tell her that.”

“Tell her again. Tell her while you’re not crying.”

Violet leans across Trixie and opens the passenger door. She hadn’t really noticed it getting warm in the car but the middle of the night cold is rushing in unpleasantly now. Trixie gets out, because Violet has unbuckled her belt for her and is shoving on her arm and she’s going to fall on her ass in the snow if she doesn’t.

There’s a whisper of movement inside as Trixie trudges up the driveway. She didn’t have the presence of mind to put her coat on earlier this evening and she’s shivering in just her sweater after only a couple of steps. It’s sobering her up. The front door pops open before Trixie even makes it up the porch steps and Katya comes out to grab her and tug her inside.

It’s warm, because Katya’s house always is. There’s a fire burning in the grate and Katya brings her all the way into the living room and sits her down on the couch. She fusses with a blanket, tucking it around Trixie, and she eases her boots off for her so that she can curl her sock feet up onto the couch cushion.

Katya kneels at her feet. Even in the firelight, Trixie sees the red tip of her nose and her swollen eyes and satisfaction twists in her stomach for just a moment. It’s swiftly replaced by a grief that rushes through her like a saline flush. She doesn’t want Katya to hurt; even just a few hours’ distance has clarified that for her.

“Trixie, honey, what are you doing?” Katya says very softly. For just a moment she’s a stranger, and then she gets those twin creases between her brows that Trixie loves to kiss off her.

Trixie is grouchy and petulant and it spills out in her voice. “Violet is an agent of chaos.”

It startles a laugh out of Katya. She looks very small, kneeling on the floor. It reminds Trixie of the last time she was drunk. Trixie frees a hand from the blanket and lays it on the couch cushion close to Katya’s head. She takes it immediately and threads their fingers together, rests her cheek to the back of Trixie’s hand.

“Are you okay?” Trixie nods, but Katya doesn’t seem entirely convinced. “You’re good?”

She feels suddenly weepy again. Trixie scrapes a clumsy hand through her hair and encounters a knot that makes her hiss a breath through her teeth. “It sucks that even when you’re the one who hurt me, you’re also the only person I want to see. I really hate you for that.”

“You’ve been feeling drawn to me, haven’t you. Since we met.”

Katya sounds exhausted. She’s still resting her head against the clasp of their hands and her lashes brush Trixie’s skin with each slow blink. Even in the wan light of the late evening, even from this angle, even after so much sorrow today, she is still so beautiful that Trixie can hardly bear to look at her.

There’ve been a couple of times when she’s tried to bring it up, tried to ask Katya if she feels the same tug low down in her stomach, the same sharp, curved hook. The problem is, Trixie allows herself to be easily distracted. She’s a talker, and she’s needed reassurance, but Katya will slide a knee over Trixie’s thighs or curl her fingers at Trixie’s ears and the words just don’t seem so urgent anymore.

“Yeah, I have. You’re a banshee.”

Katya turns her head to kiss the back of Trixie’s hand, a little scrape of teeth to show that she really means it. “That’s not what banshees do, baby.”

“Are they real too?” If she had the energy, if she weren’t exhausted and hurting and still a little drunk, Trixie might rear up from the arm of the couch. She stays slumped, and she doesn’t press the issue when Katya doesn’t answer.

“The reason that you have been — the reason that you’re _here_ — is because I sent for you.” Katya’s eyes are closed now, like she doesn’t think she can make it through her explanation if she has to look at Trixie. “When I was a tiny little girl I worked a spell, so I would never fall in love. I asked for qualities that I knew couldn’t possibly exist. But here you are.”

She sounds so achingly sad that Trixie can’t bear it. From the moment they first met, Trixie has wanted Katya. She made herself wait, because she knew that they had something worth being careful with. She isn’t about to waste all of that hard work.

She slides off the couch, bringing the blanket with her, and lands half in Katya’s lap in a messy knot. Katya’s arms come around her and she arranges them both, frees the edge of the blanket where it’s gotten trapped beneath Trixie and threatens to tip her over.

It’s not exactly comfortable, but Katya is warm and smells like herself. Trixie lets her heavy head rest at Katya’s shoulder. “You’re saying what I feel for you is just one of your spells?”

“Yeah.” There’s a wet lump of sorrow in Katya’s throat that she has to cough to clear. “It’s not real, honey.”

“Yeah well all relationships have problems,” Trixie says.

It makes Katya laugh a tiny bit. She’s got one hand cradling the back of Trixie’s head now. The floor is uncomfortable, making Trixie’s ass go numb, but she’s so tired that she can’t imagine trying to move.

If Katya has been thinking that this entire time. If Katya has been certain that Trixie doesn’t really love her, that she’s bewitched-

Trixie can’t bear that.

“I’m right, aren’t I? You don’t know for sure.”

She sounds so resigned to it. Trixie can’t stop thinking about Katya, awake and alone in the middle of the night with Trixie out cold at her side. Katya, wondering when the curse is going to take Trixie from her. Trixie struggles to get to her knees so she can look at Katya properly. Her eyelashes are all sticking together and her eyes are dark and enormous.

“Curses only have power when you believe in them,” Trixie says. Her voice is firm, no wiggle room for argument. As she says it, she imagines that it’s made true. “And I don’t.”

“Trixie-”

She touches her thumb to Katya’s chin. “You know what? I wished for you, too.”

Katya’s whole face crumples and her mouth opens on a sob. Trixie reaches for her and gathers her up, rocks Katya against her chest like a small child. She’s crying soundlessly and without moisture, dry sobs wracking her whole body and making her jerk violently in Trixie’s arms.

_I don’t want you to die_, she says over and over.

Trixie holds her until she exhausts herself, and a little longer after that. Katya has one hand fisted in Trixie’s sweater so that the wool bunches up and exposes the bare skin just above the waistband of her pants. The fire has burned out in the grate and it’s chilly in the living room now. Trixie gets the blanket around them both. She thinks about moving them back onto the couch, or to the bed, but Katya is curled up tiny like a pillbug.

“I’m not gonna die. I’m way too stubborn.”

It doesn’t earn her the laugh she’s looking for. Instead, Katya straightens out and puts some distance between the two of them. “I don’t think it’s safe. For you to be here. For you to be near me. I don’t think it’s safe.”

“Katya, I’m sorry, but this is bullshit. I believe you. I believe in you. But I don’t believe you’re cursed.”

Trixie swipes impulsively at her cheek with the pads of her fingers, but they come away dry. She’s done crying for tonight. The suggestion that she can’t make decisions for herself, that she loves Katya because of a spell cast twenty five years ago, has rankled her. Katya is refusing to look at her now. Trixie wants to take her by the shoulders and shake her, wants to put her to bed and stroke her hair until she falls asleep.

There’s an angry purple vein in Katya’s forehead that Trixie has never seen before. Katya catches her looking and touches a self-conscious hand to it. “I think you should go.”

“I can’t go. Your side piece has me trapped here.” Katya’s eyes fly to Trixie’s at that and her mouth drops open. Something small and vindictive inside of Trixie is glad for it, hopeful that Katya is ashamed the way Trixie has been. “She’s gonna take me back to the car in the morning. So I’m sorry babe, but we have one last night.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'd love to hear what you thought!


	9. nine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> validation station, your support means the world to me and i'm so grateful. and stutter. i don't have the words. i don't have the time. i just love you.

“Oh, my God, _mama_.” Violet clicks her tongue and snatches the family pack of M&Ms from Trixie before she can rip the top off of it. “No. Not three. We’re not doing three.”

Trixie lets out a petulant little whine and folds her arms over her chest. She’s stolen a swivel chair from one of the empty cash desks and she’s spent the entire afternoon alternating between spinning around and around and eating peanut M&Ms by the handful.

It’s been just over a week since she’s spoken with Katya. She’s seen her a couple of times, on accident. The spot outside of Verbena is always open. This morning it was the only one free on the whole street. Trixie had done an awful job parallel parking because she knew Katya would be watching. Sure enough, when she’d hopped down from the driver’s seat she’d caught a flash of blonde hair whipping around to face away from her. At least Katya hadn't seen her land in the slushy brown melt at the edge of the curb and splatter mud all the way up to the ass of her pants.

“I’m not done yet,” Trixie scowls, but she doesn’t reach for the package of M&Ms again. Violet has been letting her sit in the grocery store and eat her feelings. It's good to be held accountable, and she can't bear to be in the empty house for long stretches of time.

"I think you're done," Violet says.

There's a customer approaching from the end of an aisle and Trixie gets up from her stolen seat and wanders away a little ways. Violet hates this job and doesn't care about it at all, but Trixie doesn't want to get her in trouble with her manager. He's a man in his thirties with an inflated ego that neither Trixie nor Violet find at all tolerable.

Trixie typically only comes in to the store on the days Betty isn't working. She's here today but she's stocking shelves, and she doesn't seem any more enthusiastic about spending time together than Trixie is. It means it’s easy to avoid her.

The heat is turned up uncomfortably high in the store — Violet's boss said something about wanting to create an oasis of warmth to bring people in — and it's making Trixie’s skin dry. She misses her moisturiser and she misses her home and she misses Katya most of all. Trixie smoothes her hands over her head to try and flatten her frizzing hair a bit.

Katya has asked her for space.

She'd sobered up a lot, but it had felt nice to allow herself to be taken upstairs and tucked in to bed. Trixie had kissed Katya clumsily, her hands graceless and fumbling through Katya's hair and against her cheeks. She'd had to unbutton her own pants and circle her fingers at Katya's wrist so she'd slide her warm hand inside. Katya had protested a little bit, insisted that she didn't want to take advantage, but Trixie had promised her she wasn't drunk anymore. Had begged her, just to add to the humiliation of the entire awful day. Katya wouldn't let Trixie reciprocate, and she had cried, afterwards.

The morning had been unkind to both of them. Trixie isn't in her twenties anymore and she'd been groggy and disoriented, had kept rubbing at her eyes with her fists like that would help. Katya had made her tea and stood in silence to watch her drink it. She'd asked Trixie, then, for some time apart. Said she thought it was safer for both of them that way.

Trixie touches the five fingertips of her left hand to the window next to the store entrance. It's starting to get dark already, at barely four in the afternoon. Trixie loves Christmas, loves the lights and the singing and the warm gentle feeling she gets inside of her chest. It's only a couple of weeks away, and she can't bear the thought of spending it alone.

Outside the store, there's a sudden commotion. A gaggle of teenagers sprint past from the direction of the wharf. Trixie recognises a couple of them from Halloween and feels a vague stirring of irritation just to be reminded that they exist. Behind them, more slowly, come two of the boys she definitely knows. They've each got their arm around a third boy and they're dragging him, making powdery snow cascade up from his heels in a great shower as they struggle along the sidewalk.

As they go by the store, the boy's head lolls sideways and Trixie gasps. It makes Violet and the customer both look up at her and she turns around, mouth agape. "It's Peter. Something's wrong. Something's happened."

"Peter?" Violet says, and Trixie nods. Violet gets up from her chair and comes around the cash desk, head turned towards the frozen aisle. "Betty! It's Peter!"

The three of them all come hurrying towards Trixie then, Betty struggling out of the gloves they wear for restocking the freezers. A few days ago Trixie had been complaining about Peter, and Violet had very quietly informed her that Betty is his aunt. It hadn't done much to deter her, since she doesn't much like Betty either.

It did make her a little claustrophobic. She knows that in towns like this, people stay their whole lives. Everybody knows everybody. Everyone is related to everyone else. It'd still jarred her a bit and she'd found herself bringing it up several times over the course of the afternoon, until Violet snapped at her to get over it.

She's always careful to leave the grocery store before five, because she knows that Katya has been coming in after Verbena is closed to talk to Violet too. It's making her more and more cantankerous as the days go on. Just this morning, she told Trixie that the two of them need to start talking again because she can't bear one more day of their lesbian drama.

The four of them head outside into the cold, without their jackets. A small crowd has started forming and as they get closer, Trixie sees Peter's lifeless form sprawled on the ground. It reminds her of the crime scene outlines in the police procedurals Kim used to make her watch. She always thought it was ridiculous, that no one would ever end up splayed like that. The sight of it makes nausea start bubbling low in her stomach.

"What happened?" Betty says, elbowing a couple of the kids aside so she can get to her nephew. She drops to her knees with a sick thud and a little flurry of snow and cradles Peter’s face in her hands. His lips are blue and his skin mottled red and purple. His clothes are soaked through and tiny ice crystals are beginning to form at the ends of his hair. Betty lifts her head to look at one of the boys Trixie recognised, Jake. "What happened?"

"He uh- he went in the water. He jumped off the dock. He said he was doing like a, a polar plunge? I told him it was a dumb idea."

Betty makes a frustrated noise and shakes her head. "Go get his mom, one of you. Now! Go!"

A couple of the boys disperse from the group and disappear off in the direction of the school. Peter's mom teaches there, Trixie remembers from their very brief conversation when she first moved in. Mrs Davis had shown up at her door with a muffin basket and done her best to milk Trixie for information, come away knowing nothing about her at all.

Violet is hovering uncomfortably just behind Betty. Of all of them, she's the only one in short sleeves. She has her arms folded over her chest like that'll help her uniform polo keep her any warmer.

"Betty," Violet says, and levels her with a look when she turns around. "Go on. Go get her."

"No." Betty shakes her head vehemently. Peter is so still beneath her hands, and Trixie can't stop staring at him. Everyone's warm breaths are making little puffs, but not Peter's. His chest isn't rising and falling at all as far as Trixie can tell from this distance.

"You need her help. And you know she'll do it. Even if you are a hateful bitch to her."

Trixie is taken by surprise and doesn't quite manage to choke back the splutter that wants to escape her. Violet hears and lifts an eyebrow in Trixie's direction, but Betty is getting to her feet and she hurries down the street towards Verbena.

Handling a crisis has never really been Trixie's strong suit. She works well under pressure, had to hone that skill quickly to survive as a line cook, but her brain just absolutely scrambles whenever she has to formulate a plan. Violet is snapping orders at everyone, sending some of the kids to go and find some blankets and making everybody else clear back to form a wide arc around the body.

Peter. He's not a body, not yet.

Someone is on the phone to emergency services, but the town is so out of the way it's going to take a while for an ambulance to make it here. Longer than Peter's got. A few of the teenage girls in his group of friends are crying noisily a couple of feet away from where Trixie is standing.

Now that it's getting dark, all of the Christmas lights adorning the storefronts are beginning to come on one by one. It feels inappropriate with Peter still splayed out like a rag doll at their feet. The colours are vivid red and green and blue splashes in the snow, reflecting off of windows and the sides of cars.

When she gets to them, Mrs Davis lets out a scream and drops to her knees beside her son. It's not a noise Trixie has ever heard before, and not one she'd like to hear again. She paws desperately at his face, her body bowed over his as if to shield him. The kids Violet sent to get blankets come back and pile three or four on top of Peter. Everyone is hurrying to make themselves useful, but Trixie is absolutely still.

Betty comes rushing back along the main street, and behind her is Katya. It’s been a week or so since Trixie’s seen her. Apart from this morning, she’s been deliberately avoiding Verbena, looping the long way along the back streets so that she won’t have to catch a glimpse of the store or of Katya alone inside.

She hasn’t had time to pull on a coat and she has the sleeves of her sweater pulled down over her hands. Her bangs need to be trimmed again, and the threadbare patch at the knee of her pants has burst open finally. Trixie offered to sew it for her, offered to patch it, offered to drive her a couple towns over so she could buy a new pair.

The people gathered in throngs around Peter scrabble to back out of Katya’s way. She hurries right to his side and goes to her knees, lays her palms flat against his chest. Mrs Davis gets up and collapses immediately into her sister's arms, her whole body sagging against Betty.

“Oh dear,” comes a voice from behind Trixie. “It seems we’ve not arrived in the nick of time.”

She turns to see two older women, one with red hair and one dark. A murmur ripples through the crowd at the sight of them. The dark haired one lifts both eyebrows. “Well, I see our instincts are getting a little rusty.”

Trixie ducks her head in close to Violet’s. It feels a little juvenile, like trading gossip in the back of the classroom. “Who’s that?”

“Those are Katya’s aunts, mama. One's an empath and the other one's clairvoyant or whatever. I don't know which one's which.”

She feels herself staring, slack-jawed, but she can’t seem to do anything about it. Trixie has heard a lot about them. Jinkx and Dela. They raised Katya, after her parents died. She’s seen a photograph or two, but nothing from the last twenty years.

Katya has gotten clumsily to her feet and has an arm around each of them now, her face hidden against the redhead’s shoulder. That one’s Jinkx, Trixie is pretty certain. Katya lets go of her aunts and shakes her head. “You _heard_ me. I didn’t think that would work. You’re here.”

Jinkx wraps her arms around Katya again with a little squeal. Over her shoulder, Katya seeks out Trixie in the crowd. It doesn’t seem to be on purpose, because she immediately lowers her eyes to the ground.

There really isn’t time for this right now. Later, Trixie will think about how she should have been holding Katya’s hand the first time she met her aunts. How she should have been introduced as Katya’s girlfriend. Dela has crouched down beside Peter’s lifeless body and she looks up at Katya with a little frown.

“Katenka, what has happened to this child? What needs to be done?”

“I don’t know,” Katya shakes her head. She seems suddenly aware of the entire population of the town, all standing around waiting for her to perform a miracle. “Just tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it.”

Dela casts her eyes rapidly over the assembled crowd. She lingers on Trixie for a beat longer than everybody else. She saw Katya looking, then. Trixie sets her jaw and tries to look braver than she feels.

“We need a full coven.”

“Nine women,” Jinkx says.

Dela focuses her gaze on Katya then. The tiniest grin quirks at one corner of her mouth like tugging on a loose thread. “Do you have any friends?”

Violet steps forwards immediately and hurries to Katya’s side. It’s the least apathetic Trixie has ever seen her be about anything. She rests a hand at Katya’s shoulder and squeezes for a moment. Trixie has spent enough time with Violet now that she’s not jealous, but a little prickle of envy still rises along her spine. She misses touching Katya.

She wants to step forward, wants to go to her. She _should_ — Peter’s life is at stake — and her body jerks in Katya’s direction but her feet don’t move. They were friends, before everything, and Trixie still thinks of Katya as her best friend. She misses her best friend. It's truly awful to stand just a couple of feet away and not know if she would be welcomed at Katya's side.

The aunts are shooing people back from the scene, Jinkx with wide swooping hand motions and soft words and Dela with the impenetrable seam of her lips and her folded arms. They also seem to be assessing the capabilities of the townsfolk. A couple of the girls from the night of the bonfire are hovering awkwardly, like they’re waiting for permission to join the circle.

“Now’s not the time to be shy,” Jinkx says warmly, and touches her fingers to one of the girls’ elbows to bring both of them closer to Katya. Trixie can see where Katya got her gentleness.

Peter’s mother is swiping at tears with the flat of her palms. Jinkx goes to her and produces a handkerchief from the pocket of her long coat, offers it to her. "What's your name, dear?"

"Kasha." She blots at her pink cheeks a couple of times and clears her throat. "That's my son. That's my baby."

"And that's _my_ baby." Jinkx tips her head in Katya's direction. "You can trust her. She can do this."

Kasha is already beginning to collect herself, with Jinkx's gentle words and her kind face right there. There's so much Katya in her that Trixie has to look away and swallow down the noise of grief that wants out.

“Once I was halfway across town, my husband was sick and I swear to God I could hear him snoring,” Kasha says.

Jinkx smiles and pats her hand. “There’s a little witch in all of us.”

Most of the other people who gathered have retreated to a safe distance further down the street now. Trixie stays right where she is, arrested by how badly she wants to go to Katya and how afraid she is that Katya won’t want her there.

The women have begun to arrange themselves around Peter per Dela's instructions. Kasha and Betty. Violet and Jinkx and Dela. The two girls from the bonfire. Katya. That’s eight. While everybody has been stumbling around Peter’s prone form, Katya has remained on her knees beside him. She has both hands flat over his chest and her eyes closed, bottom lip caught between her teeth in concentration.

“We need one more,” Dela says. Kasha lets out a tiny, pitiful wail like an animal caught in a snare.

Katya opens her eyes, finally, and looks right at Trixie. She's not wearing any makeup today and her eyelashes are pale and delicate. She looks very small, all of the sudden, and very afraid. Katya leaves her right hand spread out wide with her palm over Peter's heart, but she lifts her left and holds it out towards Trixie. She's trembling, her knuckles pink and swollen with cold. She seems to be rapidly diminishing the longer Trixie looks at her, collapsing in on herself.

It's been a hard week. It's been a miserable, lonely, unpleasant week. Time has seemed to stretch out bleak and unforgiving and white as the snow-bellied clouds. Each morning Trixie has woken up cold and uncomfortable in her big house, missing Katya so fiercely. It's like a hole in the centre of her: as long as she lies very still it's not so bad, but the moment she moves or breathes it starts opening wider and wider.

"Please?" Katya says very softly.

There are seven other women watching them, waiting to see what Trixie is going to do. She is suddenly very aware of all that attention, all those solemn, sincere faces, and she does her best not to squirm. Katya looks so sorrowful. Even though she’s the one who wanted space, even though she’s the one who lied over and over again, Trixie can’t stand to see it.

She takes two easy, confident steps and slides her hand into Katya’s.

Her fingers are warmer than Trixie expected and she clings tight, uses that grip to haul herself to her feet. They share a quiet, conspiratorial look. Trixie almost, almost leans in and touches her nose to Katya’s, but Dela claps her hands a couple of times and it startles them both.

“Alright, ladies. Form a circle.” Everybody does as Dela says until the nine of them are standing around Peter. Kasha can’t look at him; Betty can’t look at anything else.

Trixie feels a little hostile, still. She’s heard several of these women be actively cruel towards Katya. They’ve shown her deliberate, meticulous unkindness. She’s on Katya’s right and Violet is on her left, so at least she’s flanked by people that care about her, but Trixie still has to choke back a fierce wave of protectiveness. Adrenaline is a coppery taste and she works her tongue around her teeth a couple of times to try and dispel it.

“Would each of you now join hands,” Jinkx says, and waits a beat for them all to do so. “Remember that as we go forth, it is only with our hearts beating as one that we can save the life of this child. Katenka.”

“Right. Um. Okay.”

Katya is clinging so tight to Trixie’s left hand that it’s making her fingers crunch together uncomfortably. Every head in the circle has turned towards her now. She looks at Trixie wide-eyed and Trixie gives her a tiny nod, lets her mouth tug into a smile for half a second.

“You got this, babe.”

It seems to steel her. Katya turns back around to face the circle of women and takes a slow, deep breath. Her grip on Trixie’s fingers loosens enough that the blood comes rushing back into them and they start tingling. When everyone is silent and still and hand in hand, Katya begins talking.

Her voice is middle-of-the-night low. It sends gooseflesh up the outsides of Trixie’s thighs. She thinks of Katya sliding a knee across Trixie’s hips and sinking down, cold air rushing inside the gap in the sheets. She thinks of Katya’s intelligent hands and warm breathing against the side of her neck. The words aren’t any language that Trixie recognises, but a fist tightens low down in her stomach all the same.

Right away, Jinkx and Dela begin the recitation along with her. The other women in the circle join in and Trixie does too, doing her best to sound out the phrases. She likes the sensation of the unfamiliar words rolling around in her mouth, and the pleased little glance Katya darts at her. They’re all stumbling over the incantation a bit, even Violet, although she’s doing her best to be aloof about it. A hush has fallen over the gathered crowd, and the snow makes everything insular so the only sound in the whole world is the voices of nine women in unison.

This might be the closest thing to faith that Trixie has ever felt.

They go on chanting all together, lapsing in and out of rhythm when someone stutters or messes up the phrasing. At their feet, Peter is unmoving. Trixie entertains the possibility that some of the colour might be coming back into his skin, but it’s gotten all the way dark now so it’s difficult to tell.

After a couple of minutes Katya stops very suddenly and breaks the circle, takes her hands back from Violet and Trixie. She balls them into fists and tucks them up beneath her chin, takes a half step backwards. “I can’t, I can’t, it’s not working.”

Jinkx looks as if she's going to come towards Katya, but Trixie gets there first. She feels strangely defensive about it. Katya's her favourite person, the person she leans on, and she wants to be that for her, too.

"Look at me," Trixie says, and captures Katya's ashen face in her hands. "Katya. Intention, right? You have to believe it. You can do this."

"I _can't_," she cries. She doesn't try to break out of Trixie's grip, instead wraps her hands around Trixie's wrists as if to keep her there.

Trixie shifts to the left a tiny bit to try and shield Katya from everyone watching. It puts her closer, close enough that she can smell Katya's perfume and her laundry detergent. She's missed this so much. Just having her near, getting to touch her.

"Baby, listen to me. I know you can do this. I've seen you do it. Everybody here believes in you. Betty _asked you for help_. Betty!"

Katya twitches in Trixie's grip like she's galvanised by that, but she's still panicking. Her eyes are so wide and so white and she seems to be having trouble making them stick on any one point. Trixie comes in a little closer to try to fill her field of vision and force Katya to look at her. She's close enough now that she can feel how warm Katya is.

It's a very small, very courageous thing. Trixie closes the distance and touches her mouth to Katya's. It's soft, but she lingers and she tries to let Katya feel how certain she is. The whole town is watching, but it's not like they don't know. Trixie pulls back just enough that the tip of her nose touches Katya's.

"I love you." She's never gotten to say it quite so plainly. Her smile unravels without her really thinking about it, but Katya's smiling too. "You got this. Focus."

Katya gives her a small, determined nod and steps forwards, closes the circle again. She takes Trixie's hand, takes Violet's too. She's looking at the two of them with something close to fondness, but when she catches Trixie smiling at her she scoffs and rolls her eyes.

They begin the recitation again, all of them together. Katya's voice cuts above the rest of them, strong and sure. It's difficult to tell how long they chant for. Trixie could do this all night. She believes in Katya so intensely, and she knows she's probably clinging to her hand too tightly but she needs her to know.

When it happens, it's not at all like Trixie expects. It's not cinematic; there's no crescendo and no shower of light. Peter just sits up and coughs a couple of times and then seeks out Kasha in the crowd and says "Mom, I'm cold."

She and Betty detach themselves from the circle of women and hurry to him, fumbling to wrap the blankets tighter around him and help keep him upright. The girls from the night of the bonfire, Peter's friends, are kneeling either side of him and sobbing wildly.

Everyone seems to have started moving all at once. Violet is headed back to the store; Trixie has never seen her so enthusiastic to be there, but she's shivering violently enough now that it's making her ponytail fly around her head. People are dispersing now that the excitement is over, but Trixie holds tight to Katya's hand and refuses to allow them to be separated.

"Well done Katenka, dear," Jinkx says. She wraps Katya up in a hug that Trixie becomes a part of too, by extension. "I knew you could do it."

Dela comes over to them as well and Trixie has to let go of Katya's hand so her aunts can have her for a minute or two. Her wide eyes seek Trixie's and she smiles, does her best to look reassuring. She's not about to abandon her.

"And who might this be?" Dela says and gives Trixie a once over. She lifts her chin and tries to look less nervous than she feels. She hasn't ever met the family of anyone she’s dated, before.

Katya grins widely. She has one arm hooked through each of her aunts' elbows, and Trixie notices with alarm that her legs are bowing inward so that her knees touch. "This is Trixie Mattel. This is my girlfriend."

Jinkx lets out a little scream of joy and rushes Trixie, throwing both arms around her and squeezing tight. As a rule, Trixie is not a hugger, but she sticks it out for Katya's sake. Jinkx is petting at her hair and when she lets go, she actually pinches Trixie's cheeks. It should be irritating, but she's still reeling from getting to hear Katya say that and it makes everything else less important.

The aunts extricate themselves from the conversation after a few questions about Trixie. Some of the people in the town haven't seen them in years and there's a cluster of middle-aged women anxious to catch up.

Without their support, Katya sways where she stands. She scrubs a hand over her face, pallid even in the moonlight, and her mouth opens and closes soundlessly a couple of times.

"Trixie-" she manages to get out, right before she hits the ground.

Trixie goes down with her, palms at her elbows to control the fall as best she can, and she brings Katya into her lap to protect her from the snow. The far off noise of sirens is swelling louder and louder now, and most of the people still out in the cold are busying themselves trying to help Peter, but a couple of heads turn their way. Trixie brings her other arm up around Katya to shield her face.

"I've got you. You're okay, it's okay. I've got you."

"M'so tired," Katya slurs.

Trixie kisses the crown of her head and stays there for a moment, gives herself the space to just breathe. "Do you think you can make it to the store, sweetheart?"

She helps Katya to her feet and holds on to her as they make their way down the street towards Verbena. Katya stumbles a couple of times, scuffing her feet through the snow. There are multicoloured lights strung up along the guttering that Trixie helped her to hang a couple of weeks ago. She'd held the stepladder steady while Katya stretched up on tiptoe to get them fixed into place just right.

Trixie helps her through the door and closes it behind them, flips the deadbolt for good measure. Katya is clinging to Trixie's arm with both hands now. It's bright inside the store and she scrunches her eyes closed, hides her face against Trixie's shoulder. Trixie reaches around Katya to turn out the lights. She is warm and soft and scented and Trixie holds her there, fingers light and shifting through Katya's hair.

"Do you want me to make tea?"

"No," Katya murmurs. "Don't let go of me."

She sounds so young. Not afraid, not exactly, but exhausted. Trixie wraps her arms around Katya and eases both of them very carefully to the ground. It's uncomfortable on the hardwood and she wishes they were in one of their beds, so she could drape herself over Katya and tuck the quilt in tight around them both. There's time for that later. For now, she holds Katya close against her chest and rocks her.

"You did so good, babe. It's okay to rest now, I'm right here. I won't let go of you."

Katya, with some difficulty, lifts her head to look at Trixie. “Where’s your second shadow?”

“Huh?” Trixie nudges gently on Katya’s head to get her to relax and she slumps against her again. “Oh. She’s fine, she’s safe at the house.”

"Trixie," Katya says, and then nothing more. Trixie tugs on her earlobe very gently, touches her lips to Katya's forehead to bring her back. "I missed you so much. I'm so sorry."

It sounds like she might be crying a little bit, but when Trixie dusts the pads of her fingers over Katya's cheeks to check they come away dry. Her body is lengthening in Trixie's grip as all the adrenaline drains away, but Trixie can still smell it on her like woodsmoke.

"I know you think you're gonna hurt me," Trixie starts, and gets a little grunt of acknowledgement. "But this is worse. This hurts worse. Please don't shut me out again. I can't- I just want to get to see you and kiss you every day. That's all."

Katya disentangles herself from Trixie's arms and with a great deal of effort arranges her legs beneath herself so that she's kneeling. She kisses Trixie, wet and desperate, opening Trixie's mouth with her own. Trixie moans low in her throat and kisses back, slides both hands into Katya's hair to scratch her nails over her scalp.

When they separate some of the colour has come back into Katya's cheeks and her mouth is smudged. Trixie smoothes her thumb over Katya's bottom lip and can't help her little whine when the tip of Katya's tongue darts out to touch.

"Are you still gonna make jokes about me murdering you?"

"_Duh_," Trixie rolls her eyes. "Have you seen yourself? Awful. Haunted. You're like something that would come out of a lake and fuck up my whole situation."

Katya screams a laugh and grabs Trixie's accusatory pointer finger to shake it around in her fist. "Like a kelpie? Mama, you don't even _know_. You should meet my cousin."

"I don't need to. I've seen your hooves."

It makes Katya gasp loudly and press her free hand to her chest like she's wounded. Since the day they met, they've laughed together. It's been the thing Trixie has missed the most, and she's so full up with joy that she has to bite the inside of her cheek so she doesn't cry.

Katya is looking at her so fondly, and it's like she's coming back to herself finally. She reaches out to tuck Trixie's hair back out of her face and leaves her hand there, palm against her cheek. The floor is uncomfortable, but she's happy to stay right here for a long time as long as she gets to have Katya touching her again.

"Hey, Trix?" Trixie hums a little noise of encouragement. "I really love you."

"You do?"

It's not like her to need reassurance, and she doesn't, not really. She believes her, believes in the smile that's so wide and bright it's making her nose crinkle, believes in her soft and certain hands. She's just waited such a long time to hear it, and she wants to hear it again and again.

"I do. So much."

"I love you so much, too," Trixie says. "Now can we please go home? I'm numb from below the waist. I need you to check for a pulse."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i would love to hear what you thought!


	10. ten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been enormously lucky since joining this fandom because I've gotten to meet a lot of really amazing people. In particular [connyhascontrol](https://archiveofourown.org/users/connyhascontrol), [JoanneElizabeth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/joanneelizabeth) and [mattepinkallshades](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mattepinkallshades). You ladies have supported me from the very beginning and I'm so grateful, thank you.
> 
> And [stutter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stutter). I will never, ever be able to thank you enough for everything you do for me. Thank you for looking over this story a thousand times, talking me down from a hundred crises, and holding my hand through all of it. I couldn't ask for a better soulmate. I love you.

The world outside is sleepy and pink-hued and Trixie wrinkles her nose, refuses to open her eyes to it just yet. There’s a weight on her chest and between her legs, one long length that’s squirming. Tiny, insistent kisses litter her jaw and neck and then teeth scrape. Trixie, stung with pleasure, sucks in a sharp breath and opens her eyes to Katya’s face hovering over her.

“I love you and good morning,” Katya says, and nudges her nose against Trixie’s. “What did you dream about?”

Trixie huffs a little noise and brings her hand up. It’s not warm in the bedroom even with the two quilts and with Katya laying on top of her. When she cups Katya’s cheek the cold of the ring makes her let out a little yelp.

She wears it on her middle finger, because Jinkx very seriously informed them both that the middle finger is associated with Saturn, and therefore represents eternity and wisdom. Trixie's not sure she believes that, but she loves Katya's aunts and she likes the idea of eschewing hetero tradition.

They aren't married — they _can't_ get married — but Trixie wears a gold band with a tiny black tourmaline set into it, and Katya has a sigil tattooed onto her own middle finger because rings make her itchy.

“I dreamed some rotted ghoul woke me up for no good reason,” Trixie says, but she lifts her chin and Katya comes in close, kisses her softly. “Good morning. I love you, too.”

Katya has her elbows either side of Trixie’s head, but she’s letting most of her weight rest on Trixie’s chest. She likes it, will often wrap her arms around Katya on the couch and tug until she drapes herself over Trixie.

“Happy anniversary, baby,” Katya says softly. “Our first one. Our last one.”

She’s got that concerned little crease between her brows again. Trixie works her knuckle into the meat of Katya’s forehead until she laughs and snaps her teeth. For long, lazy, indulgent moments they kiss and kiss. Katya tastes like herbal tea and it makes Trixie aware of her morning mouth. She refuses the invitation of Katya’s tongue at the seam of her lips, turns her head instead so Katya will kiss her cheek.

Katya's fingers are inside of Trixie's sweatshirt and travelling upwards, warm and careful. Trixie arches into her and winds one arm around Katya's neck, tosses her head back against the pillows.

"Babe, you know Dela said we don't need to worry," Trixie gets out. Katya has one arm hooked beneath her leg to encourage her knee up towards her chest. She feels split open, sticky and aching. "It's- _oh_. It's gonna be fine. It's not our last anniversary. You're being dramatic."

"Am I dramatic, or am I right?" Katya says. She's working on Trixie's underwear, taps her hip with two fingers so she'll lift up and help her get them off.

They land on the floor with an embarrassing wet thwack when Katya tosses them behind herself over her shoulder. She starts sliding down the bed then, rucking up the quilt as she goes as if she's tugged on a loose thread and made the whole thing pucker. Trixie lets her knees fall apart and then closes them around Katya's ears.

"Did you- oh, my God, _Katya_." Trixie fists both hands in Katya's hair and tugs so that she lifts up a little bit, grins at Trixie. Her face is shiny even in the pink light of the morning. "Is everybody fed?"

"Everyone's fed, everyone's fine. Let me celebrate."

Trixie has no interest in arguing that.

Afterwards, Trixie lazes with Katya's fingertips resting against her lips. In the last year she's gotten more tattoos, ones she doesn't have to hide beneath her sleeves. Trixie opens her mouth in invitation and Katya pushes two fingers inside. She has a snake on her index and Trixie touches her tongue to it.

When she bites down Katya gasps and wrenches her hand free. "Brat."

"Are you really scared?"

Trixie has a hypothesis that Katya only monologues about the imminent end of the world because she likes when Trixie shuts her up. She reaches over Trixie to the floor for her t-shirt and pulls it back on, lets it sit crooked so the ball of her shoulder is exposed. Katya leans back against the headboard and drops her hand to the top of Trixie's head, pets her absentmindedly like she does Dolly.

"I absolutely am," Katya says very seriously. "Trixie, no more automation. No more computers."

"You hate the computer."

Trixie gets up, all the way out of bed to collect her robe from the back of the door. She knots it at her waist and turns away, heads for the hall. A moment later Katya comes thundering along after her, bare feet slapping on the hardwood. Getting down the stairs is difficult, because Katya has both arms around Trixie's shoulders from behind and she's chattering in her ear about the catastrophic ramifications of the new millennium. At the bottom she trips on the pile of their mingling, discarded shoes and has to catch herself against the banister.

The dog rouses herself from her blissed-out heap on the couch and pads over, butts her head against Trixie's thigh. Trixie stoops to kiss her good morning and stroke her silky ears. When she straightens Katya is waiting for her in the doorway to the kitchen, pointing a spatula at her.

"I didn't make you a romantic breakfast because I know you think me cooking is a criminal offense." She circles the spatula in the air a couple of times, and when Trixie reaches her she stretches on tiptoe to tap the top of Trixie's head with it. "But know that the intention was sure there. It's the thought that counts, right baby?"

Trixie snorts a laugh and takes the spatula from her before she can be assaulted with it any further. She makes eggs, because it's easy and fast and requires minimal concentration. She can allow herself to be distracted. Katya's hands are on her the whole time she's cooking, stealing kisses and sifting her fingers through Trixie's hair.

She still feels a bit quivery, like her skin is charged, but they have things to do today. They have a lot to do today. It's a cold morning but they eat on the porch, looking out at the water and listening to Cash and Guthrie bleat in the barn. Trixie has a blanket around her shoulders and Katya's warm feet in her lap.

All summer they've been out here. Trixie has loved padding out in her bare feet to the grass sticky with dew and the fresh, cool air. She loves it still in the fall, these last few days where it's been just on the right side of too cold to sit out in the mornings. Katya does yoga on her mat in the grass and then comes sweaty and gross all the way into Trixie's lap most days.

"Remember there's both containers for later, babe," Trixie says. Katya mops up the last of her breakfast with a corner of toast and chews it happily, her face crinkled with pleasure. "Do you want me to run you down in the car?"

Katya flexes her biceps and does a little half-turn in her chair to let Trixie see them both. She's goofing off, but it still makes Trixie's mouth dry. "I can carry them. Don't you want to see me carry them?"

Rather than admit how much she does want that, Trixie gets up from her chair and collects their plates and glasses to bring inside. Dolly stays out with Katya, even though Trixie is her best hope for scraps. A year in, some of the jealousy is abating. Trixie likes to see them, one dark head and one blonde bent together.

Once the dishes are done, she has to go and collect Katya from the backyard. It made sense to sell the farm: Katya's house is closer to Verbena, and bigger, and has been in her family for generations. Dela officiated their rites at the end of the spring, and instead of a honeymoon they built a paddock and a coop for the chickens and moved everybody in.

Every once in a while, Trixie misses the view from the kitchen window at the farmhouse. She misses standing at the sink and looking out at Katya with a chicken balanced on her shoulder and another in her arms. But at nighttime now, she gets to sit on the little bench at the end of their garden with Katya's arm around her shoulder and listen to the susurration of the cove and the hum of the cicadas.

"We're gonna be late to open," Trixie says, and fists both hands in the bottom of Katya's sweater to haul her back against her chest.

She goes easily, willingly, turning as she does so she can loop her arms around Trixie's neck. The morning feels crisp and shiny and golden and Katya is warm in her grip, her mouth open and teasing.

"That's the whole point of owning our business, baby. We can be late to open. We can be so late that we're early for tomorrow."

"That doesn't- _mmf_," Trixie kisses back, of course, always does. She dreams sometimes still about the week she didn't have Katya, and she's glad for it. It means she never forgets to be grateful now. "That doesn't make any sense."

Trixie untangles herself from Katya and starts towards the house again, hears Katya and Dolly both come bounding after her. They've talked some about getting another dog, now that Dolly is at home by herself so much of the day. It's one of the conversations they have that to Trixie is planning for the future and to Katya exists entirely in the abstract.

The gold band of her ring is beginning to heat up now and Trixie worries at it with her thumb. She likes to feel it there, and she likes even more how Katya will take her hand in the evenings and stroke along her fingers while they watch a movie.

Trixie drives the two of them down into the town and parallel parks outside of Verbena. In the passenger seat, Katya is cradling two Tupperware containers in her lap. Trixie was up late into the night decorating cookies in the shapes of ghosts and pumpkins for Katya to take to the kids this morning. She kisses her goodbye at the door and heads off down the street in the direction of the elementary school.

Violet is waiting for them, leaning back against the storefront with one foot flat against the wall so her knee is bent. When they opened the cafe it had been Katya's idea to try and poach Violet. She had jumped at the chance, with as much enthusiasm as Violet ever shows, so the arch of one brow and a muttered _sure, whatever_.

"Hey, sorry we're a little late." Trixie gets the door unlocked and holds it open for Violet to come inside as well.

"Anniversary, right? I'm surprised you like, made it in at all." At Trixie's raised eyebrow, Violet shrugs. "Your wife has been telling me all week how excited she is for today."

Trixie elbows the row of switches to flip the lights on and washes her hands, starts pulling things out of the refrigerator to prep. In the mornings most of the people who work in town come in for coffee and sometimes a pastry, and Trixie's comfortable letting Violet handle that.

It had taken until the middle of January for Trixie to get restless. She didn't miss Los Angeles or the restaurant, but she did miss feeding people and keeping her hands busy. Turning Verbena into a cafe had been Katya's idea, and it had taken eight months of work to get all of their permits and the renovations completed. They opened officially last month.

They've been open for an hour and a half when Katya comes back, empty Tupperware in hand and her cheeks pink with pleasure. On her way behind the counter she ensnares Violet in a brief, tight hug that makes her mutter under her breath. Katya comes in to the kitchen and kisses Trixie's cheek, hoists herself up to sit on the vacant prep counter.

"Honey, those cookies. They kept asking me if I'd magicked them. Wanted to know if they had newt brains and eel eyes in them. I said no magic, you're just that good at cooking."

"It's baking, not cooking. Get your ass off my counter," Trixie says. When she looks up from the tomato she's slicing Katya is staring at her, slack-jawed, and the arrhythmic drum of her heels against the counter has stopped. "What? _What_?"

Katya shakes her head and a grin spreads slow and wide across her face. “I love you.”

“_Okaaay_,” Trixie says slowly.

Katya hops down from the counter and takes the knife out of Trixie's hand. She circles her arms at Trixie's waist and leans back to see her. "That was the last thing. That's what I manifested. The person I love will have magic too."

"I thought you said I already showed everything you wished for."

From the moment Katya had mentioned wishing for qualities, Trixie had been unable to ignore the itch beneath the surface of her skin. She wanted to know. Of course she wanted to know. After they had settled into their life, after Katya had stopped waking up in the middle of the night screaming and clutching at Trixie like she was unspooling in her hands, she'd gotten up the courage to ask.

Katya had fed them to her piecemeal over the course of several days, rewarding Trixie after dinner or with her legs over Trixie's shoulders or, one time, waking her up at three in the morning just to whisper it to her.

"I thought six out of seven wasn't bad," Katya grins, and leans in to kiss Trixie properly. She very nearly hoists her up onto the counter, but they have only about an hour until the first lunch orders start coming in and there really isn't time to disinfect her surfaces again. "But here you are. You really are my dream girl."

That makes Trixie scream out a laugh, loud enough that Violet pokes her head through the serving hatch with a hand over her eyes and says "you two had better not be naked back here."

"We're not, we're not," Trixie says, circling her fingers at Katya's wrist to tug her hand out of the back of her pants. Violet eyes them both for a long, uncomfortable moment but says nothing and disappears out to the front again.

Trixie takes a step back from Katya and presses the flat of her hand to her shoulder so she can't close that distance again. "We had a handfasting ceremony."

"Yep."

"Your aunts were there."

"Mm-hmm," Katya grins. She steals a slice of tomato from Trixie's cutting board and seems to remember that she hates tomatoes half a second after it's in her mouth. Trixie watches her chew it with her face all scrunched up and she offers her a hand to spit it out into. She doesn’t, she swallows it, and a shiver of revulsion goes through her.

"You're just now deciding I'm right for you?"

Katya threads her fingers through Trixie's at her shoulder and lifts her hand to her mouth, kisses the heel of her palm. When she lets go, Trixie leaves her hand cradling Katya's cheek. Katya's eyes flutter closed and she hums a contented little noise.

"I decided you were right for me the second I saw you," she murmurs. "But it's nice to have it confirmed."

"Will you tell me again?" Trixie asks. She remembers, is certain she'll remember for as long as she lives, but she likes to hear Katya say it all the same.

Katya counts each one out on her fingers. "They will have two shadows, cheeks like roses, hearts for freckles."

Their first night together, Katya discovered the one freckle shaped like a heart on the back of Trixie's shoulder. She's been obsessed with it ever since. One of her favourite ways to wake Trixie in the morning is to tug the quilt down and kiss her there, linger until Trixie opens her eyes and rolls over to kiss her properly.

"They'll be very brave. They'll be from a far away land." That makes Trixie snort a laugh. Wisconsin is pretty far, but Katya makes it sound like she was off battling dragons before they met. "They can turn invisible. And they can do magic, too."

"I still don't think me being a recluse counts as turning invisible." Trixie tilts her head. "You're so specific. I just wanted somebody warm and kind."

Katya laughs and wraps her arms around Trixie in a hug. She hides her face against the side of Trixie's neck and rocks the two of them back and forth. The bell over the door jangles and Trixie hears Violet greet the customer, has to untangle herself from her wife.

It's not like anybody minds. People know that they live together, that they own the cafe together. People still come up to Katya in the street to thank her. Every time it makes the tips of her ears turn pink and she clings tight to Trixie's hand. Still, Trixie likes to try and be professional when they’re at work.

Their afternoons tend to pass quickly. Trixie stays in the kitchen, Violet out front, and Katya drifts back and forth to be useful wherever she's needed most. They still sell a lot of her products from when Verbena was an apothecary, so from time to time she will allow herself to be completely distracted by an inquisitive customer and spend a half hour with them running through the entire itinerary. Mostly though she helps Violet make coffee and toast sandwiches in the press.

After the lunch rush is over they let Violet go home. She's going to a party in the city tonight and it's a couple hours' drive even before she has to get into her costume. As always she is surly and aloof, but she lets them both hug her and she lets Katya kiss both of her cheeks as well.

"C'mere baby," Katya says when the door is closed behind Violet.

She holds out her arms and Trixie steps into them, winds her own around Katya's little waist. They kiss lazily for a while. Katya's hands are in Trixie's hair; most nights when she combs it out before bed she finds she has a matted patch at the base of her skull from Katya's fingers.

They have to break apart when the bell over the door goes. Trixie pats at her mouth with the back of her hand, tucks her hair behind her ears. It's Peter, dropping in as he does two or three times a week to ask if they need anything. He sent Katya a gift basket on her birthday, filled with fruits that she wrinkled her nose at but Trixie got to enjoy over the next week or so.

"I think we're all good for right now, hon," Katya says. She's still got one hand in Trixie's back pocket and she squeezes. Trixie is maybe a little more proud than she should be that she doesn't move, doesn't make a sound.

"Cool," Peter says. "I'll see you tonight?"

Katya grins widely and darts a small glance at Trixie like she thinks she ought to check. "You surely will."

For the last hour the kitchen is closed and Trixie gets to hang out behind the counter with the love of her life. They don't both work every single day, sometimes one or the other of them will take a day off and every now and then they'll close so they can spend the day together. Most days though, she’s here nourishing the town and watching people come in to the cafe just to say hello to Katya.

It's quieter toward the end of the day, so Trixie gets to hear all about Katya's morning. Once a month she goes into the elementary school to teach a nature class to the first and second graders. They are all head over heels for her. Every time they're out they seem to bump into at least one of her kids and Katya will always crouch down in the middle of the sidewalk to be eye level with them.

She's so patient and kind; she listens so intently. It makes Trixie's chest hurt. Neither of them are sure if that's ever going to be in the picture for them. At the end of June, they went into the city for Pride. Katya had been jittery for several days before, and on the morning of the parade she recited an incantation for them both invoking protection and safety. Next spring, there's suggestion of a march on Washington for the new millennium. Katya's not usually a planner, but she's already talking about closing the cafe for a few days and heading across the country to be there.

Trixie sends Katya home ahead of her. She's not all that helpful when it comes to the cleaning and organising that needs to be done at the end of the day. As it's started to get dark she's gotten more and more anxious, so the walk will do her some good. Trixie leaves the cafe pristine and spotless as she always does and makes the short drive back to the house.

"Babe? Do you want a quick dinner?"

Katya appears at the top of the staircase already in the tight pants and white blouse she's had hanging on the back of the door all week. Her hair is spilling out all over her head in wild curls that look like she's used an entire thing of hairspray.

"No. I need you to come and kiss me before I do my makeup." She leans over the bannister to look down. "Come kiss me, Trixie. Now!"

Trixie laughs and hurries to get out of her shoes and coat. Dolly is hopping excitedly around her ankles and she follows Trixie up the stairs in a sleek, dark blur. At the top Katya grabs for Trixie and backs her up against the wall, pins her hands either side of her head. Their kiss is wet and deep and Trixie arches against Katya. She slides her knee between Trixie's legs and Trixie ruts against her thigh. She tries to touch Katya's hair and her fingers come away sticky, make her breathe a little noise of distress into Katya's mouth.

She lets her hands fall down instead and splay wide at Katya's ass. When these pants came in the mail Trixie had pestered her to try them on all day and when she had, Trixie had collapsed dramatically backwards against their pillows in a paroxysm of joy and fanned herself until Katya came to straddle her.

"You're so fucking sexy," she says against the side of Katya's jaw. "It's really not okay. You're a _teacher_."

That makes Katya scream a laugh and separate from her, shaking her fists. She disappears into the bathroom again and Trixie follows her in there to get started on her own makeup. It takes her a while, because it's been a long time since she's really worn any. She has to get in close to the mirror and she can see Katya from the corner of her eye giggling at her concentration face.

Katya splashed out for the good fangs, the individual ones that cap her incisors instead of the plastic strip ones they found at the party store. They have plans to use them after tonight, so Trixie insisted it made sense to get the good ones. She's done a red and burgundy eye and her mouth is the same vivid jewel tone. Trixie keeps messing up the little crescent moon she's trying to draw onto her forehead every time she looks at Katya.

"This is really so stupid, you know that?" Katya hoists herself up to sit on the bathroom countertop and poke Trixie with her toes. "This might be the dumbest thing we've ever done."

"It's ironic." Trixie finishes the last of the little black dots she's put carefully around her eyes and between her brows.

Her own clothes are hanging in the closet in the guest room. She's borrowing robes from Dela and boots from Jinkx and topping everything off with a cheap velour hat they picked up from the party store.

Tonight, Trixie is the witch.

They’ve been planning it for a few weeks. It isn’t necessarily the kind of event that necessitates a costume, but they won’t be the only ones dressed up. Trixie feels good, powerful and sexy. She isn’t ready to examine the effect the blood dripping from Katya’s mouth is having on her.

"I'm so excited!" Katya says again. She's told Trixie about a hundred times on their walk down to the bonfire. Trixie's got Dolly's leash in one hand and she's holding tight to Katya with the other like she's a little kid who might bolt at any moment. The dog is wearing an orange sweater with a pumpkin on it that Katya knitted for her and she wriggled with pleasure and licked both of their faces when they first put it on her.

Their clasped hands swing between them as they walk. As always, Katya is absurdly warm on Trixie's left side. The air feels crisp and charged tonight and they can hear the noise from the town before they see anything. The moon overhead is round and enormous, peering down at them.

"Remember last year?" Katya says, and tugs on Trixie's hand to stop her.

They're almost at the field where the bonfire is set up, and there are a few families making their way along the sidewalk close to them, but it's dark enough that it's somewhat private. "I remember."

"You came to my door in that absurdly huge pink sweater and I wanted to kiss you so bad. I wanted you so much, all the time, but that night-" Katya shakes her head. "You were so goddamn cute. And you held my hand."

Trixie kisses her cheek, right at the corner of her mouth. They're safe, they're lucky, but she still doesn't always feel okay kissing Katya out in the open. "Can't believe you let me yell at a bunch of kids for you."

"_Uhm_-" Katya starts, her voice pitched up in indignation. Trixie lifts their clasped hands to her mouth and kisses Katya's knuckles, to apologise and to shut her up.

"Come on. They're waiting for you."

The bonfire is usually lit by whichever hyper-macho dad needs to wield the matches and soothe his ego, but this year they've asked Katya to do it. A crowd has formed all around the perimeter of the bonfire and a hush descends as Katya walks up to it. Trixie stays close by, keeping Dolly at her side with a short grip on the leash.

Katya holds both of her hands out and closes her eyes. By now, Trixie must have watched her do this hundreds of times. She always likes to make a show of lighting the fire in the hearth when they come home for the night, sometimes gesturing vaguely at it from across the room without even looking. One time she lit it from upstairs and startled Trixie, alone in the living room, so badly that she screamed out loud.

Just like last year, everyone is watching her. Trixie spots a few of the kids from Katya's class having to be restrained by parents so they don't charge at her. Katya's murmuring something very softly to herself and then she gestures upwards suddenly and flames burst into life with a noise like a gunshot. The crowd erupts with cheers and scattered applause and Katya turns to find Trixie in the crowd. Her mouth is wide open with joy and it comes spilling out of her as she manoeuvres her way to Trixie's side.

"Did you need to do all that incantation stuff?"

"Not at all," she laughs. "Just wanted to put on a show. Come on baby, I owe you a powdered donut."

Their progress over to the food stands is slow, because people keep stopping them to compliment their outfits or ask after the cafe or thank Katya for whatever little kindness she's shown them lately. The air is already thick with the smell of woodsmoke and barbecue and Trixie feels woozy with pleasure, is grateful for Katya's arm hooked through hers.

"Miss Zamo! Miss Zamo!"

A tiny voice stops them both in their tracks and they turn to see a little girl with dark hair hopping excitedly up and down on the spot. Dolly strains towards her and Trixie grips the leash a little tighter. She trusts Dolly completely; she doesn't always trust little kids with her. Katya has crouched down to face the girl.

"Hi, Jessie. Happy Halloween, sweetie."

"Look!" Jessie holds the tattered skirt of her dress in her hands and spreads it out away from herself, does a little curtsey. She's wearing a crooked hat that matches Trixie's pretty closely, and now that she's looking properly Trixie sees that her face is green. "I'm you. I'm a witch!"

Katya laughs loudly and gives Jessie a high five. Her mother is catching up to them now, a bit out of breath, and she rests a hand at the top of her daughter's shoulder. They chat for a little bit and Trixie wanders away. She's content in the knowledge that Katya will come find her when she's done.

Sure enough, two thin arms come around Trixie's waist from behind while she's in line at the donut stand. Katya's lifted up on tiptoe — Trixie can feel how she lets her weight rest against her back — and she kisses the soft skin right in front of Trixie's ear.

"Should we have a kid?" she says quietly. "No, probably not, right? Right?"

Trixie turns around to see her and accepts the whole length of her into a hug when she drops back to flat feet. Some of the ghoulish white foundation she caked on earlier is starting to come away at her jaw and around her nose and Trixie likes to see her pink skin peeking through.

"That would be super difficult for us," Trixie says. The line is moving and she lets Katya nudge her backwards, trusts her not to crash them into anything. "I don't know if we could do that."

Katya tilts her head in consideration of that. At their feet, Dolly has given up waiting and lays down on the ground, rests her long head against her front paws. She makes a little braying noise of irritation and they both laugh. Katya cradles Trixie's face in her hands. They're so hot; later Trixie will ask Katya to warm her up and get to feel heat travelling all the way into her toes.

"I like our life," Katya says, so sincerely that Trixie bursts into a fit of giggles she feels in the centre of her chest. "What? Don't laugh at me."

Trixie manages to stop laughing and leans in to kiss Katya's cheek. "Sorry, babe. I'm not laughing _at_ you. I like our life, too."

The line starts moving again and Katya glances over Trixie's shoulder, tips her head to gesture for her to step forward.

"We're next, honey."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for coming on this journey with me. All of your kind words have been so wonderful and I'm very touched and grateful. You can come talk to me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/reallybeanie) or [tumblr](https://katiehoughton.tumblr.com/) if you like! Have a safe and happy Halloween if you're celebrating, and a lovely Thursday if you're not ♡

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Vernalis](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23451748) by [stutter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stutter/pseuds/stutter)


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